


If I Can't Be Everything To You, You'll Be Nothing To Me

by IAmWhelmed



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Super Sons (Comics), Superman (Comics), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Arranged Marriage, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Cain Barnett is a Little Shit, Clark Kent is a good parent, Comedy, Damian Wayne is a Little Shit, Depression, Drama, Emotional Manipulation, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Family, Heartbreak, Hurt Damian Wayne, Hurt Jonathan Kent, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Innuendo, Jealous Damian Wayne, Jealous Jonathan Kent, Jealousy, M/M, Post-Break Up, Protective Batfamily (DCU), Romance, Sexuality Crisis, Thoughts of Self-harm, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:00:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 80,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25581733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmWhelmed/pseuds/IAmWhelmed
Summary: Jon breaks Damian's heart, and in the midst of this, an old family friend of the Al Ghuls seeks to take advantage.Damian finds himself betrothed to a boy he knows nothing about, who seems more interested in getting into his pants than getting to know him. Dick and Tim struggle to figure out why Damian is so willing to marry someone Talia picked for him, while Bruce tries to find a way to stop the wedding without pushing his son away, and right into the arms of a family he doesn't trust. Jon mourns the loss of his friendship with Damian, and finds himself spiraling, wondering why they can't just go back to the way things were. Can Bruce and the rest of the family stop Damian before he makes a huge mistake? Will Jon ever find his way back to Damian's side, again?
Relationships: Clark Kent & Jonathan Samuel Kent, Damian Wayne & Bruce Wayne, Damian Wayne & Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne & Tim Drake, Dick Grayson/Koriand'r, Jonathan Kent/Damian Wayne, Jonathan Kent/Damian Wayne/Original Character(s), Jonathan Samuel Kent & Lois Lane, Jonathan Samuel Kent/Damian Wayne, Stephanie Brown/Tim Drake
Comments: 634
Kudos: 638





	1. Enter Paris and Champagne

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StillKickingIt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StillKickingIt/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Last Robin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17008446) by [StillKickingIt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StillKickingIt/pseuds/StillKickingIt). 



> This work is inspired and based heavily upon this fic here ^
> 
> I found it fantastic and heartwrenching, and I think you guys should go give it a read (especially if you want context for this fic) and give this author (StillKickingIt) some love! I hope they're okay with this lol They said they had more but I'm an impatient bitch and I just couldn't wait!
> 
> Definitely go read that before you read this! The contents of this story will make much more sense if you do.

He’d been a fool, a fool for ever thinking Jon felt the same way.

He’d been a fool to fall in love in the first place, he’d never meant to, but he couldn’t have helped it. How stupid, he thought as he tore his tie from his throat-- how stupid to think Jon was going to be the one. He’d let himself think what they’d had was real, that Jon meant what he said. He’d thought Jon had wanted him. His mistake.

And now he saw his face in every goddamn girl that came around, batting her eyes at him like the rich kid he was. None of them would taste the same if he kissed them, none of them would hold him the same way, not that he was interested in any of them to begin with. He wasn’t supposed to, because he was not yet the age Gotham stipulated, but he’d stolen an abandoned champagne glass at the bar and took it with him. It was bubbly, made him nearly choke as he sucked it all down, and it tasted bitter in the fleeting moments the nectar sweeped over his tongue. God help him if a reporter saw that. The last thing he needed was a Gotham City News scandal and the ensuing scolding of his father. The thought made him flinch. Stupid, stupid boy he was, thinking he could be loved. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

His fist clenched at the stem of the glass, enough that he was tiptoeing the edge of snapping it in half. He wanted to, wanted to shatter the glass in his hand and feel it break. He wanted to feel his skin sting and watch the blood gather and slither like the sick blackness in his stomach down his palm. Love. What a fucking joke. Before he could stop himself, he turned and threw the damn glass at the stone wall of the manor, watched it shatter and turn to glittering dust and edges as it hit the ground. Jon would never touch him again, never see him again, not if he could help it. _Best friend_ , he’d called him, like he hadn’t tossed him to the curb like garbage, like he hadn’t _played with him_ , like he hadn’t made a toy of Damian until he found more interest in the space between Iris Allen’s legs. He could go to hell. He could fucking burn and die without Damian at his side, because they weren’t friends anymore. [If he couldn’t be everything to Jon, then _they would be nothing_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw8LyN21OO8). Strangers. He didn’t know him anymore. He’d do whatever he had to do to skin himself of the memory of Jon’s hands anywhere near him.

“My, my… what a temper.”

A boy his age appeared on the other side of the closed french doors, glancing down at the shattered champagne glass with what few could read as amusement. Most would have thought him irritated, disgusted, but there was a mirth in the curve of his lip that Damian had been trained from a young age to gauge. Blonde hair that fell in a wisp by his eyes, green, hungry, he moved like a leopard. The way the Al Ghul family moved. At once, Damian tensed. “You are unfamiliar, is this your first time attending a Wayne Fundraiser?”

“Hah, yes, I’m afraid so. Regrettably, if this is the sort of action I’ve been missing.” He gestured to the broken glass on his way past it, strutting smoothly to the fence of the balcony where he settled, resting his arms in a cross over the edge. Damian watched him, unsure, because he truly hadn’t seen his face before. He’d have remembered it. Boyish, sculpted but still childish, alight with innocence despite the suggestive nature of his body and the way he moved. It was like he was putting on an act, trying to come off more mature than he really was. His breathing was stable, but there was a tenseness in his shoulders that told Damian he was not as confident as he presented.

Damian turned his nose to the air, but offered a polite handshake, the way he’d been taught as Bruce Wayne’s youngest. “Damian Wayne.”

“No, no,” The stranger took his hand and shook it once, squeezing, firm. Damian glanced up to see that his confidence was reaching his eyes again, and there was a damning smirk on his lips. “Damian Al Ghul.” Damian pulled back with a hiss, but the stranger only laughed. “Don’t be alarmed, please, I’m a family friend.”

“I’ve never met you.”

“Talia sent you away before you’d come of the age to, to my understanding.” He sighed, pouting, and he looked so much more like a child, then. “I’ve been rude. I am Cain Barnett. My sister is Abele Barnett, if you remember the name?”

Barnett… yes, he’d heard the name a few times, whispered on his mother’s tongue, but never around his grandfather. Aiden Barnett, a confidant in England, head of a black market family who hired a good number of Assassins from the League, powerful, rich, but inconspicuous and scarcely known. He’d never met either of the Barnett family children, though he gathered he’d been meant to, eventually, when he’d come of the age where the League would be his to take. That age would have been now, at 17, nearing 18. But, in light of his departure from the Al Ghul family, in light of the fact that he’d be considered an enemy should he step anywhere near the premises of the land he’d once called home, it seemed unlikely his mother would still want to introduce him. “I do.”

“Good! That is good news. I worried you’d doubt my sincerity.”

“And I do.” His eyes narrowed. There were about three different escape routes he could use in the event that this turned into a bloodbath, and his father was only a few feet away, right through the balcony’s french doors. He’d draw attention if he tried to fight back. Damian Al Ghul knew how to kill, Damian Wayne should-- and would-- not kill. “You must be aware I have no intention to take my grandfather’s throne. The League is under my mother’s control, and it shall stay there until she relinquishes the role, herself.”

“Oh, no!” Cain laughed, damn well giggled, and waved a hand as if to bat away the suggestion. “I’m not here about your role as the head of the League, I’m here simply about your role as an Al Ghul.” Damian raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t sure how those two did not pertain to each other. Surely, his blood meant nothing if he were not to inherit the throne. Cain set his chin at the knuckle of his curled fist, smiling, green eyes light like emeralds and shining in mirth. “You see, a long, long time ago, my father promised you my sister’s hand in marriage.”

What?

Damian’s heart skidded to a sudden halt, a skip. A fiance? But-- “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I can’t honor this arrangement.”

“Because you’re gay.” A laugh bubbled up in Cain’s throat as Damian pressed his forearm to his throat, bracing himself against the balcony’s fence. “Your mother wasn’t keen on revealing details, but I have my ways.” Cain raised an eyebrow, mockingly, a corner of his lips raising to show off a thin trail of pearly white teeth, single fang that looked sharper than it probably was. “My sister was always so excited about marrying you. She’d seen your portraits, heard about your first trophy. I believe Talia even sent us the head. She keeps it in a jar, you know, says that your ruthless nature is what draws her to you.”

“I’m not like that anymore.”

“I’m not sure I believe that.” Cain shook his head, but made no moves to pull away from Damian’s pressing arm, no matter the force he used against his throat. The only sign that he felt it at all was the light red dusting his cheeks, but that could have just as well been from the alcohol he could smell on his breath. “Look what you’re doing to me, Damian, you’ve still got Al Ghul blood in your veins, and my father still finds you a good fit for our family.”

“I am _not. Interested._ ”

“You misunderstand, Damian.” Cain lifted his hands, delicately brushed them against the arm of his tailored suit. His fingers were lithe, brushed against the small sliver of skin that inched out from under his flexing arm. Those green eyes were just as alight as they had been moments before, but shimmered in the moon’s glow, so different from Jon, who was brightest in the company of the sun. Cain was a wolf where Jon had been a bird, alive in the night, like him. Like his father. His hold slackened, the memory of Jon’s smile coming unbidden. It hurt, it hurt, it burned and so did his eyes and he wanted it to stop. Jon had never loved him, and they could never go back to the way things had been before, and he was alone, as he always was. He didn’t want to think about that with his arm at some stranger’s throat, even if his smile looked the same, even if his hands felt like Jon’s against his wrist. Cain squeezed back. “I’m not here to force my sister’s hand, I’m here to force mine, _my dear fiance_.”

* * *

He hadn’t seen Damian in weeks, hadn’t heard a word from him. Maybe he shouldn’t have expected to after they’d last met, maybe he should have focused more on Iris, but it’d been so hard. Every moment of every day, he struggled to keep himself from calling again, from leaving another message when he knew Damian wouldn’t listen to it. He messed up, he knew he did. He’d hurt Damian, hurt him horribly, then rubbed it in his face because he’d been so stupidly excited to _show off his first girlfriend_ \--! He should have never kissed him, should have never told Damian he wanted him, should have thought things through before he crossed that bridge… but instead, he’d burnt it the moment Damian had gone to follow him. He’d tried to be as kind as he could have, tried to tell Damian that he’d been wrong about what he’d wanted, and he was sorry, and he’d tried to convey that, but he knew it must not have hurt any less.

God, he’d been so worried about him when he left the tower that day, knew that waving Iris in his face was like another shot straight through his heart if Damian had been telling the truth ( ~~that he loved him~~ ). Damian had always been the type to cave in on himself, to work too hard and get hurt in the process, to throw himself into anything that kept his mind off of the thing that was hurting. Usually Jon was a safe place for him to come to, even if it always took a little prodding. Usually, he’d have already had Damian venting by now, talking with his hands as they hung around in his room for hours, until he got tired, until Jon forced him into a hug and made him spend the night. And he’d tried to do that, still be his safe place, was prepared to take every abusive word Damian might have had because he knew he kinda deserved it. But Damian had run from him, said mean things about Iris, who didn’t deserve it, who’d done nothing but uh… rock his world, once (it hadn’t happened again since). Damian had told him that _looking at him made him feel sad_ , told him they couldn’t be friends anymore, that things would never be the way they were before, and that killed him.

He loved Damian, as a friend, and he missed him so, so horribly. It felt like a piece of him was missing, it felt like he was in a nightmare he couldn’t just blink and snap himself out of. Damian was his best friend, his soulmate (platonically, even if it took him a while to figure that out), the other half of his heart and his partner. Superboy and Robin, Superman eventually and whatever title Damian decided to take on. They were a pair, a team, inseparable, and now it was looking like he’d gone and ruined everything. Kori was still worried, everyone was. They all came to him for answers he couldn’t give, because then he’d have to tell them… what he’d done. What they’d done. Even if it was all innocent, even if he’d figured himself out. He’d probably costed the Teen Titans a teammate in the process, and he didn’t know how to fix it. He just wanted Damian back in his life, that was all he wanted.

It was a Monday, quiet, a summer morning. Nobody was around, with his dad at the Justice League Headquarters and his mom out late working on a report she swore up and down would win her another prize. He hadn’t slept in three days, longer if you didn’t count the hours he intermittently dozed off throughout the weeks he and Damian hadn’t been on speaking terms. Sleep seemed to elude him since that night in Gotham, and when it didn’t, his mind liked to haunt him with the image of Damian’s turned back, the break in his voice as he called Iris a slut and ran away from him. He couldn’t help but think that Damian had been close to crying, too, wanted to believe he wasn’t the only one laying awake at night, biting down on his lips so his dad wouldn’t hear him crying. Though maybe it was better if Damian hadn’t been. The thought of being the reason somebody as strong as Damian cried sent sick shivers through him like he’d swallowed a string of seaweed whole. Jon carried himself out to his mailbox, thankful that he had no neighbors to judge him for the sweatpants and the three-week-old t-shirt that he was pretty sure he’d spilled lo mein on two days previous. He couldn’t bring himself to care, not when he could hear Damian’s low chuckle in his ear. _You’re getting sloppy, Superboy_. He wanted to hear that voice, would take that sweet sound anywhere he could get it. He pulled open the lid, stuck his hand in and retrieved what was doubtlessly bills, bills, and more bills, maybe a college offer.

He slumped his way back into the house, sparing a passive pat at Krypto’s head as he made his way to the kitchen.

 _Bank, bank, Metropolis University, Wayne Industrie--_ ”Wayne Industries?”

A small envelope, not white, tinted red, and signed with the typical Wayne Industries stamp. It was impersonal, but he’d take it, anything, _anything_ that Damian _maybe_ had a hand in. He tore open the small envelope with such abandon that he’d nearly torn the card inside in half. It was smaller, square, and fit in the palm of his hand. On the front were two different names in cursive, one he didn’t recognize and Damian’s. Then there was a date between both, only a month in the future. An invitation, then. A fundraiser? Damian’s birthday wasn’t until Fall in November, not that he thought he’d get invited to that anyway with the way things were going. The card smelled of Damian’s cologne, forest oak and mint, and the scent made tears come to his eyes. He missed it, missed that comforting, familiar smell, missed him. Rao, he felt weak in the knees.

He opened the small square.

_Clark Kent_

_Lois Kent_

_Jonathan Samuel Kent_

_You’re cordially invited to the wedding of_

_Damian Wayne & Cain Barnett _

_8/28/2020_

It slipped from his fingers, fluttering to the ground until the words laid face down, and Jon could pretend, through his trembling fingertips and eyes filled with tears, that he hadn’t read them.


	2. Paris in Gotham

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I'd show you all how Cain takes Damian's "Hell No" and makes it a "Yes", and this is just the beginning <3

3 Weeks Before Invitations Are Sent

* * *

“I’m not like that anymore.”

“I’m not sure I believe that.” Cain shook his head, but made no moves to pull away from Damian’s pressing arm, no matter the force he used against his throat. The only sign that he felt it at all was the light red dusting his cheeks, but that could have just as well been from the alcohol he could smell on his breath. “Look what you’re doing to me, Damian, you’ve still got Al Ghul blood in your veins, and my father still finds you a good fit for our family.”

“I am _not_ . _Interested_. ”

“You misunderstand, Damian.” Cain lifted his hands, delicately brushed them against the arm of his tailored suit. His fingers were lithe, brushed against the small sliver of skin that inched out from under his flexing arm. Those green eyes were just as alight as they had been moments before, but shimmered in the moon’s glow. Cain squeezed back. “I’m not here to force my sister’s hand, I’m here to force mine, _my dear fiance_.”

Damian stared at him for a moment, then blinked, and stared for another moment longer.

He pulled away and pushed Cain to the side, offering him freedom, but leaving the threat unspoken. “You’re a fool if you think I’m going to marry you.” The night was nigh, high as the moon sat above with stars that glared over the unfamiliar manor and colored the undisturbed sea of tension around them blue and white. Thick and suffocating, mollified only by the calming rush of water in the distance down below, where the rounded fountain spurted and leaked trails of Adam’s ale at a time.

Cain straightened his suit jacket, ruffled from the scuffle, a damning smile growing wider. He looked unbothered, not a blonde hair out of place on his slicked-back head. “Is that so?” He stepped forward, and Damian reflexively took a step back. Soft hands reached out, fingertips brushing only the underside of his jaw as this-- this _stranger_ \-- leaned forward with famished and eager eyes. “I’ll just have to change your mind.”

“And how do you intend to do that?”

“Why,” Damian leaned back as Cain grew closer, tongue jutting out to paint his lips in a thin coat of silver. “[I’ll just make you fall in love with me.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7y1oG9w7xU)”

Damian scoffed and shoved him away for the second time. He had no time for this, nor patience. This night was hell enough without some quasi heartthrob trying to bar him into wedlock. He’d find his father and fake a stomach ache (because he was not an actor if he didn’t oft practice), and he’d ask that they go home early. Besides, he’d had about enough interaction for the night, perhaps the month. He wanted to go home, curl up with Titus and Alfred the Cat, and sleep away the wet glisten on Cain’s hungry smile. “Good luck with that.”

* * *

Two days later, Bruce returned from a publicity stunt with Damian in toe. The grand opening of Gotham City Vet Clinic was well-received, and better yet, a cause Damian could agree with his father on. He wondered if he’d done it for him, if he’d noticed the pained way he’d carried himself recently. He told himself that was ridiculous, because his father never paid his brothers a lick of attention, let alone him. It was a good way to get Damian involved, to ease him into helping Drake and his father with the family business, like he hadn’t already tried to the moment he’d shown up at ten years old. He’d been barred at the time, for god knows what reason, because he was just as competent as Drake was and he could _prove it_ , but now they wanted him to get into Wayne Industries? Well, maybe he didn’t want to anymore.

It was just as Damian was stripping himself of his coat that Alfred, the butler and not the cat, appeared at the doorway. “A, erm, gift arrived for you while you were away, Master Damian.” Damian paused as he pulled his arm through the left sleeve, blinking as Pennyworth nodded to the hallway. “I had the delivery men place it in your room while you were away. It seems to me you have a secret admirer.”

“Thank you, Pennyworth.” Pennyworth hummed.

Only after he’d finally shedded the jacket and taken off his shoes did Damian pad across the hallway to his room, pondering what could possibly be waiting for him. A secret admirer, that implied the gift was romantic in nature, or perhaps a gift given to someone for whom one typically had much respect. A box of chocolates, perhaps? Not something he’d typically indulge in, but he supposed he could pass them off to Grayson, or even Brown, whom he knew for sure would always accept sweets no matter the fullness of her stomach or the content of sugar. Maybe it would be a stuffed animal, as a way of celebrating Wayne Industries’ venture into Veterinary Clinics. He supposed he’d keep it, if that were the case. He wasn’t big on stuffed animals, but Titus and Ace could always use the chew toy and the exercise.

What he found when he opened his bedroom door was so much worse. His bedroom walls, covered ceiling to floor in daffodils, jasmines, and forget-me-not’s. The flowers covered his bed as though he was meant to lay upon them the way Snow White once did on her deathbed, surrounded by glass and florals and _creepy little gnomes_. The flowers stretched from one corner of his room to the other, blocking out the still-well-high sun beyond his window, as it was only noon, and the wallpaper he was so terribly neutral to. Even his desk was filled from edge to edge with daffodils, be it petals or the flowers themselves. He found little space on his floor to cross to the aforementioned desk, finding only the thinnest of stretches of carpet between the rows and rows and piles of flowers that seemed to never end. There was a small white card that laid in the thick of it. Folded, neat and tidy, upon a small crown made of jasmines. He picked it up, pinching it between his thumb and pointed finger, then opened it with a raised brow.

_If you and I were flowers, we’d be a budding romance, though I can think of another bud I wouldn't mind putting my nose in ;)_

To his great torment, the card continued to go on and on, listing not only dozens of flower puns, but graphically sexual pick-up-lines, and it continued to the back of the card, where he grew concerned Pennyworth had seen some of the raunchiest one-liners his _admirer_ had to share. Damian couldn’t help the twitch in his eye. He tore the card apart and tossed it in his beside bin. The flowers would be removed as soon as possible, by his hand or Pennyworth’s-- he didn’t much care.

* * *

Two days after that, he was reading quietly in the living room, feet kicked up at the windowsill, a mug of herbal tea in his hand. He had to admit that Pennyworth was inhumanly good at brewing the finest, and he was starting to think himself addicted. The book in his hand was, though perhaps not a favorite of his, a familiar and therefore comforting read. The Iliad, easy, long, not too convoluted, for him anyway. The promise of the most beautiful woman by the goddess Aphrodite, manipulation of the mind, an abducted wife, leading to what might have been the greatest war in greek mythology. The trojan horse, a concept he had to be well aware of as both Robin and the son of Talia Al Ghul, had served him well in the past. The book was timeless, and he could return to it as often as he found himself feeling lost-- which he certainly had been as of late. He took a scolding sip of his tea and tried to read the words over again.

“Master Damian?”

“Yes, Pennyworth?” He set his tea down in the empty space next to him.

“Another gift came for you in the mail. It seems to be yet another display from your secret admirer.” He wasn’t sure if Pennyworth could see the roll of his eyes, and he wasn’t sure he cared. He was yet to tell anyone about Cain, because he simply did not matter. He was presumably another ploy on his mother’s part to bring him back by her side, and he could handle this on his own. ( ~~He doubted his father would care if he told him about something so trivial, so inconsequential, and his brothers were much too busy with their own troubles to bother them with a proposal he wasn’t even considering to engage with.~~ )

“Give it here.” He held his palm open. “Please.”

He felt the lightweight box sitting upon his open hand in the next moment, and he glanced at it. Small, blue, golden ribbon decorating the sides and meeting at the top in a big, bombastic bow. His eye twitched. “What a persistent girl she is, your admirer.”

“Thank you, Pennyworth, that will be all.”

Pennyworth raised an eyebrow. Years of living under his roof told Damian that he was curious about what lay inside the box, and would not leave until his interest was satiated. Damian sighed. He placed his book in his lap so as not to lose his place, and the box atop the spine of the book. He carefully undid the ribbon, finding despite its intricate knots, it was easy to undo, and satisfying. He could feel Pennyworth’s eyes watching him, innocent inquisitiveness feeling somewhat like the edge of a knife Damian could accidentally cut himself with should he not be careful. If the gift displayed at all like the last, then he’d have to answer a lot of questions he preferred to not. The corner of his lips twitched downward as he lifted the top, finding inside the box an expensive pair of pants. Traditional for his home grounds, and a nice sandish color that, untraditionally, sparkled, as though it’d been taken straight off of Aladdin’s princely alter ego and set in his lap. He raised an eyebrow, then took the pants by the hem and lifted them for Pennyworth to see.

“How nice. Those look quite expensive.”

Damian’s eye twitched. They probably had been expensive, possibly tailored specifically for him if the back of the pants were any indication. It would have been ideal that the pants were normal, wearable, even if he hadn’t gotten the chance to wear them and would stuff the pants away for another twelve years. Less ideal would have been some writing on the back, akin to the word _Juicy_ written at the back of sweatpants from Victoria’s Secret. Even less ideal would have been something like “Marry Me” or “Property of Cain Barnett” written across the posterior. Any of these would have been embarrassing, and made the pants something he would never wear, even in the privacy of his own room for the sake of curiosity. None of these were quite as bad as what was actually at the posterior end.

Nothing. There was nothing at the other end. The space that his haft would have typically preoccupied was bare of even the smallest strap of material, and would have left his entire derriere open and exposed to the world. The pants were totally and entirely assless, and he was all at once thankful that Pennyworth could only see the front of them. He threw them, backend-down, back into the box. “Toss them.”

Pennyworth’s eyes widened. “Master Damian?”

“I never want to see these again, and for the love of _god_ , do yourself a favor and try not to look at them, either.”

Pennyworth took the box with mild confusion, head tilting at an angle that implied he wasn’t entirely sure what just happened. “It seems rather rude to throw out such an expensive gift.”

Rude? He’d been called much worse in the past, and if throwing out assless chaps from a suitor he was the opposite of interested in counted as rude, then he was unapologetically boorish. “I don’t care. Dispose of them. Throw them down the garbage disposal, set them on fire, throw them into the depths of Arkham and let The Joker get ahold of them-- I don’t care. In fact, the lunatic would probably find great humor in them. Do whatever you must just, please, never let me see them again.”

Pennyworth cocked an eyebrow, but turned to leave, box in hand, nevertheless. “As you wish, Master Damian, though I certainly hope whoever you strive to court in the future isn’t quite so callous with your pursuits.”

Damian nearly snorted at the irony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please remember to leave a review, so that I know people want more of this! <3
> 
> I have the whole outline done, now, and boy, guys, is this gonna get WILD. I'm eager to see how everybody feels about Damian, Jon, Cain, and the batfamily as the plot progresses, because at its core, this is a Damian Wayne Growth story lol Things probably aren't going to go how you think they will, and I encourage everyone to look closely at the things the characters say and do so you don't get left behind ;D (oh, and maaaaybe the music I attach to each chapter. Every song is connected to the story, the question is HOW)
> 
> Also I've decided to slip some humor in to hopefully ease the pain of the angst that's absolutely going to keep coming and hitting lol Hopefully nothing feels out of place!


	3. Cantarella

2 Weeks Before Invitations Are Sent 

* * *

It was rare nowadays that Damian spent time with his brothers. More exactly, it was rare that his brothers found the time to hang around him. Todd was always busy with whatever it was Todd did, which he assumed spanned from unloading his guns into Gotham’s Worst to lazing around his hideout with Artemis, underneath sheets in the warm sun that spilled in from his tiny window. Drake was more likely to swallow an instant heart attack’s worth of Red Bull before he conceded to hanging out with _Demon Spawn_ , though he was also probably consumed in whatever case he was working on. Or, like Todd, messing around under sheets with his loving girlfriend. Grayson-- well, he didn’t even live in Gotham anymore, and it was difficult for him to find the time to visit his youngest brother between field work and-- yes-- spending time with Kori.

“I’m really sorry, Lil’ D.” That’s why it was disheartening when Grayson called to cancel. It was the first time he would have seen Grayson in… awhile. The first time he would have seen him since things had gone down with Jon, since he’d needed Grayson there more than ever before. He wouldn’t say that, because that was childish, and weak, and selfish because Grayson was a very busy man, just like their father, but it was moments like this where Damian wished he could. “You remember the new Brother Blood case, don’t you?” Of course. It was what the Titans had been working on the last time he’d attended a meeting, when Jon had walked through the doors with Iris under his arm and a smile wider than it’d ever been standing next to Damian. “Well the last mission went a little sideways. She got hurt-- nothing serious! But she kinda needs my help to move around on her foot right now.” Starfire got hurt. Because the mission went sideways. Because Damian wasn’t there to watch her back, to level the odds the way he usually was. It was his fault. Grayson wouldn’t say it, but he felt his brother was implying it. He’d been shirking his duties as a Titan for the better part of a month, maybe more, and now his team had paid the price.

“I understand, Grayson.” Damian paused, then said “Wish her well, for me.”

He could hear Grayson’s smile through the phone. “Will do, Lil’ D.”

He pressed the off button before another word could be said, then tossed his cell to the other end of his bed. How nice it must have been, to have somebody like that. He was happy for Grayson, really. He had an apartment in a new city, and he spent his days cooking stir fry with Kori’s arms around him. When one was hurt, the other was there to nurse, to hold, to love, and they were better heroes for it. Damian was proud of Grayson for finding something so right, so good, because if anyone deserved it, it was the first Robin, and the best of men. Damian sighed and threw himself onto his bed, bouncing on his back as it rebounded under the sudden weight.

He just wished he could have that, too.

He pictured what it might have been like, to have Jon in bed next to him, pressing kisses to his head as their legs tangled and their hands clasped. He almost knew what that was like, could call on smaller less intimate memories, holding hands with Jon in the solitude of their Fortress of Attitude (he still snorted at that name, but it had stuck), his legs wrapping around Jon’s waist as he hoisted him onto his back and flew through the air. He knew what it felt like to have Jon’s lips pressed against his head, and relished the muscle memory of his lips moving graciously against his. He could feel him still, if he concentrated, remember the slowness of it, the caution because they were both a little scared. That was okay. He’d loved every second of it, found himself wishing for it even when he could still call Jon his, though he guessed he never really could, in hindsight. He squeezed his eyes shut and willed away the burning. The worst part, the worst part of all of this, was missing what they’d had.

* * *

It was a box. A very, very full box. Pennyworth told him it was another gift from his secret admirer, and Damian had to admit, Cain had certainly thrown the dart and come much closer to the mark than he had with any of his previous… “gifts”.

His father stared down at the box with what was quite possibly a fruity cocktail of confusion, dread, and uncertainty. Damian felt that his own expression was not far from the same, though with a hint of joy he couldn’t help but feel.

Kittens. Black, white, orange, striped, spotted, all so small and loud and hungry for either milk or attention. There must have been a dozen of them, all pawing at the edges of the box now that he’d opened it, purring and chirping at him as he reached down to scratch under the chin of one particularly fussy kit that was struggling to walk in its youth. Better yet, there was no card with tasteless innuendo, or an expression of Cain’s deeply repressed (or liberated) sexual urges. The card merely read _To My Love, Your Future Fiance_. Presumptuous as he always was, for sure, but less irkingly so than he had been with his previous two endeavors. One of the kittens reached the edge of the box and fell forward over the tipped lid, while another, a tabby, screamed and climbed over its siblings to reach the corner he so desperately wanted to see over. Another, a tuxedo with a pink button nose, tried to stand and instead fell onto its side.

“You… can’t keep these.” Pennyworth snickered into his fist while his father eyed the second kitten that was climbing its way out of the box and onto the kitchen floor.

“I know, Father.” Damian lifted up the spotted kitten that had fallen over the edge and was working its way to stand again. He held it to his face and smiled when it licked his nose.

* * *

It’d been a bad night, Damian would be the first to admit that.

He’d had a lot of pent up rage, a lot of hurt, and he’d taken it out on the low-level criminals Batman and Robin encountered. It was stupid, a small robbery of a diamond store. Nobody had been in danger, there wasn’t a high-risk, hostage situation. Robin had just seen the diamond rings, and he’d seen blue eyes, and he’d lost it. His father was right to be mad. Damian had all but sentenced some of those men to years of hospital treatments and therapy, and for what?

But Damian was a slave to his pride, and even if he knew he’d been wrong, even if he knew his father had every right to bench him, he still couldn’t help but fight, defend himself. It was the way he’d been raised as Talia’s son, and Bruce Wayne hadn’t exactly beat the argumentative streak out of him. “Where were you tonight, Damian? Because you sure as hell weren’t in Gotham.”

“I did what I had to do.”

“You had to break that crook’s legs, Damian? You had to give that man a concussion?”

No, of course not, but he’d been the one with the blue eyes, and Damian couldn’t stand to see them. Especially not when they looked scared, not when they looked like _his_ eyes, all filled with tears, the night he told _him_ he didn’t want to see him again. “What’s your point?”

“My point is that you’re benched until your head is clear.”

He’d deserved that. He knew he did. “Fine! See if I care! I’m not even supposed to be Robin, anymore! In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve stuck around longer than any of them! Every Robin before me has either left or died by the time they were my age!”

His father eyed him beyond his mask, the famous Bat-glare, the kind that always sent the younger heroes into shivering fits, the kind that every Bat kid was immune to by now. Not right then, though. Right then, it felt like his father was looking right at him, right at his nasty core and judging him for his stupid, reckless emotions, deciding how to punish him as every moment passed. He deserved that, too. What he’d said had been hurtful, a reminder of lost fights and crowbars, stuff he knew still kept his father up at night. “So, what will it be? Are you going to walk away, or am I going to have to bury you?”

That still hurt. His voice raised in pitch. “Are you sick of me being Robin already, you want me gone that badly?”

“I won’t have a Robin putting his life and Batman’s life on the line.”

“You’re supposed to put your life on the line for me because _I’m your son_!”

“For my son I would, but not for an Al Ghul!”

The room froze, because there was no way of taking back those words. He almost couldn’t believe Batman had said them-- that _his father_ had said them. It was an unspoken truth, one that everyone knew, of course, and that included Damian. There was a reason Drake called him _Demon Spawn_ , why he never felt very much like a son despite feeling like a brother, why he had been paired up with Superboy, BoyScout Extraordinaire, in the first place. Nobody was supposed to say it, because though it was true, it was needlessly cruel, the thing that drove Damian his whole life to be a good person, a goal he was starting to see with each passing day was insurmountable, hopeless. He’d thought he’d been getting better, that he’d proven himself to Batman and every Robin before that he was capable of being _good_ , but looking at Batman right then, he knew he was _just_ a blood son. Batman’s eyes were wide behind his cowl, and they both knew the words had just come out, but that made it so much worse because that had to mean they were true. Batman winced at himself. “Damian, I-- that’s not how I meant it.”

Damian said nothing. He tore his mask off and stormed out of the cave.

* * *

1 Week Before Invitations Are Sent 

* * *

It’d been a handful of days since he and his father had last spoken. He wasn’t sure if that was because he’d been avoiding his father at all costs, or if Bruce Wayne was avoiding him just the same. It was because of this that he hadn’t had the chance to tell his father _no_ when he RSVP'd to a fundraiser in Metropolis. Something about the merits of the media, which meant there was no doubt that Clark Kent would also be in attendance, which meant that it was possible his precious son would be, too (unless he was busy with his tramp). It worried him, the possibility that Jon would try to talk to him, but it also excited him. He’d… needed him. He’d needed him now more than ever, between the empty space he’d left when he’d broken his heart that night, to the growing distance he felt between himself and his father. He wanted so badly to run to Jon, to tell him everything, to talk for hours with his hands the way Jon always said he did, to fight Jon’s hugs until he couldn’t pretend he didn’t want them anymore. He bit down on his tongue and warned himself not to go there, because he’d regret it if he tried to let Jon back in, be it because of his pride, or the very real threat of getting hurt again.

(Bruce looked at his son, took in his stature, the way he leaned against the window of the limo and lost himself to his thoughts. Damian was in pain, he knew how it manifested in each of his boys, and Damian was, though not the easiest to deal with, the most obvious. The idea that he’d caused that pain burned a hole right through his chest, made it hard to talk. So he wouldn’t, not yet.)

* * *

The party was in full swing by the time Bruce and Damian Wayne made their entrance, which made it leagues easier for them to split up and avoid each other for the rest of the night. That confirmed it for Damian, of course, that his father was avoiding him just as well as he was avoiding his father, but he would pretend that didn’t hurt because nothing hurt an _Al Ghul_. Damian made his way to the refreshments immediately, eyeing the fondu and the ranch and the veggies. The slices of tomato on mozzarella looked delectable right then. He grabbed a plate, then paused as a hand crossed his path, holding a glass of champagne in offerance. Damian sighed.

“No thank you, I’m not of age, I’m afraid.”

“You’re rich, My Love, nobody will bat an eye.” Damian’s shoulders and arms tensed at once, and he eyed Cain with the slyest glare he could manage as Bruce Wayne’s heir among the public eye. Cain wore a new suit, sleek as before, light grey with hints of serene peach in the vest he wore beneath, with hair styled to part at the side this time, as opposed to slicked back. His smile was just as wide as it had been the last time, though more contained, less openly lascivious. “Besides, last we met, you’d had yourself a drink, did you not?”

Damian swatted at his offered hand and moved past him to get to the platters. “Will you ever stop?”

Cain chuckled. “Not until you’re wearing white, my dear.”

“Don’t call me that, and that’s not going to happen.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk! I wouldn’t be so sure of that. You’ll fall for me, eventually.” Damian rolled his eyes and stacked a tomato or two onto his plate, then moved to the strategically placed celery, spread out in a fan to look pretty for the guests. He snorted to himself. Cain followed him as he moved down the tables. “Or perhaps you’d do it for the pride?”

“I have plenty of pride as the son of Bruce Wayne.”

“Pride as in the pride of a lion, My Love. I offer you my family. Haven’t you always wanted one of your own?”

Damian winced as the plate slipped out of his hands, hitting the table with an embarrassing clatter. It thankfully hadn’t fallen far, and hadn’t made a mess, but his fingers still twitched. Cain watched his hands over his shoulders, eyes lidded in innocent interest. Damian stared at his plate for a moment, steadying his heart, ceasing the slight twitch of his hands, before he grabbed the plate and continued gathering horderves. “I already do.” He moved down to the next platter, and Cain followed, tittering.

“Disowned by the Al Ghuls, flaunted like a commodity to the public as a Wayne. That can’t be what you wanted from a pride, Damian, surely, you have more imagination than that.”

He whipped around, surprising and exciting Cain, who took only a half a step back and grinned. “I will never marry you. I will choose with whom I share my name and my bed, I alone.”

Instead of finding Damian intimidating, as most typically would, Cain seemed positively delighted, eyes alight as he took Damian’s hand and bent down in a bow, pressing a gentle kiss to his fingers. Damian twitched. “I understand, My Love. I merely wish you’d choose me.” Cain glanced up at him from his bent state, and from behind his bangs, Damian could see the prurience shining in the wide stretch of his pupils, and the grin on his lips.

Damian tore his hand away, set on denying him the dignity of a response. He thought such a nuisance would have gone away by now, but he supposed even cockroaches could survive a nuclear winter. He rolled his eyes and moved to the next platter.

Then the building shook.

He tried to right himself as he fumbled, but Cain’s hands were at his waist, steadying him before he had the chance to. There was a crackling sound, maniacal laughter, and he supposed it was safe to assume that one of Superman’s bad guys had arrived at the party, or at the very least came to crash it in the wake of not receiving an invitation. For what reason one of his villains would target a party filled with the elite, he wasn’t sure, but from the look of the robots, who dressed in clown costumes and elf costumes and pointed paintball guns filled with real bullets, Damian made an educated guess and assumed it was Winslow Schott. The crowd screamed, innocent people fled with their hands over their heads and men grabbed their wives so they could act like a shield.

(“Damian!” Bruce glanced frantically around the room. He knew his son could take care of himself, and Damian would tell him as much, but dammit that never stopped him from worrying.)

Damian made a move to join the fray, but found Cain tugging roughly at his hand. He pulled him down and pushed him under the table, locked him down by the hand at his wrist. Damian winced at the force. Cain was stronger than he let on. “You can’t be serious, Damian!” Cain dropped the suave air he kept and loaded him with a light scolding brow and a twitch in his nose. “Rushing into danger like that?”

Damian sneered right back. “That’s part of being in the Wayne Family.”

Stubbornly, Damian lifted the tablecloth.

Superman, to no surprise, had already made an appearance, and had torn up a few of Toyman’s robots with ease, but he was still outnumbered by a hefty six dozen dolls with revolvers. His father was nowhere to be seen, at least not in the overwhelming droves of people who were cowering at any and every edge of the room. If Damian could just get away long enough to find his father, then--!

He should have known. He had known, actually, he just forgot in the buzz of excitement and terror (of the people around him, not his own, duh). Superboy swooped in not far behind his dad, and just like that, ten bots were down for the count. The rest was grunt work, pulling the tech apart, breaking their cores, smashing the robotic pieces under their heel as they crushed mech heads with their fists. It was mesmerizing, almost, watching Superboy work. The way his muscles clenched, the fire in his eyes, the white of his smile and the chime of his laugh as he made fun of the situation with his dad. His cape, still attached to the childish jacket he always wore when they were kids, drifted out and open as he dove down into the masses to gather up a couple of robots who had gotten too close to the civilians. Red flooded Damian’s vision, and then the blue, as it always did. His heart soared in his chest, and he wanted to be happy to see him, he wanted to be relieved, but he knew the sinking sad feeling was coming again, heading his way like a freight, and he wondered if that’s how Batman was going to lose this Robin.

The fight was over in minutes, and instead of tears and cornered civilians, they had cheering fans and uproarious gratitude. The usual hero stuff. Superman turned to Superboy and smiled, gave him a pat on the head that made Damian’s heart flutter with jealousy. This was a media-sponsored gathering, however, and that meant some civilians were rushing to be the first in line to talk to Superman and Superboy. The usual questions.

“What ulterior motives do you think the Toyman had this time?”

“Anything you would like to say to Metropolis?”

“Superboy, is that a lipstick stain?” Damian’s heart dropped, and by the pink of Superboy’s cheeks, it was going to anyway.

“A-Ah, n-no!” Superboy waved his hands frantically in defense, while Superman grinned at him and set his hands at his hips, proud like the father he was. “I-It’s just some paint f-from my h-hobby!” Superboy did not paint. His hobbies included and were in fact limited to video games, eating, soccer, and patrol. Superman clasped one hand on his son’s shoulder.

“I think my boy would prefer not to answer questions about that at this time.”

Damian could see it, even from a few feet away. The lipstick print one of the reporters mentioned, bright red, the same color as Iris Allen’s hair, planted squarely at Jon’s shoulder, messy where she probably tried to leave a bruise. It was hidden by the tilt of his cape at his shoulders, but now that he was relaxed, there was no hiding the evidence of his coition. He dared bet that Superboy hadn’t been at the fundraiser to begin with, that he truly had been somewhere else, fooling around with the girl _he’d broken him for_ \--

Cain raised the tablecloth with the hand that wasn’t clenched firmly around Damian’s wrist, then used the one that was to balance himself as he hovered forward. “So little grace in the way they fight… though I suppose one has little need for grace when you have the strength of a god. Still, it would be nice to put in some effort, just for the flare.”

Damian set his hand on Cain’s settled forearm and squeezed. “I’ll marry you.”

Cain’s head whipped to him, though Damian kept his eyes facing the distance, struggling and forcing himself to pretend the crowd wasn’t even there, that Jon wasn’t only a few steps away when he’d never felt further from him. Cain’s cheeks turned a rosy shade, eyes glistening not with tears, but glee. “You… will?” Damian nodded, clenching down on Cain’s arm even harder, just to keep himself still, to keep himself from running. He turned to Cain, then, tried to focus on the way his greens looked darker and yet so much bigger under the dimness of the table. He was going to have to get familiar with those eyes. The rest of the world faded away, just for a moment, drowned out by the sound of his heart pounding wildly in his ears.

“Not because you have convinced me, but because I choose to.” And that was the truth. So much had happened recently that was outside of his control, Starfire getting hurt, his brothers living a full happy life without him, abandoning him, his father confirming his deepest seeded fears about himself, letting his guard down for Jon, taking his armor off and confessing his love only to be turned away and replaced in the next minute. He just wanted to be in control, again, even for a moment, even if this was the last bastion he had of willpower. He could never change who he was, right? And Cain promised to stand by him even as an Al Ghul, anticipated an Al Ghul when what he got was a Wayne. Marriage was a small price to pay for freedom, and offered more than it hindered him.

Cain smiled down at him, surprise shifting instead to the thirst Damian was becoming exceedingly familiar with. He leaned forward with a wicked smile, twisting his arm in Damian’s hand teasingly. “Whatever you say goes, My Darling Fiance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, was that what you expected? :D
> 
> I'm shocked that I got all of this done literally the next day lol I know we're all probably starting to really hate Jon right now, but I want to tell you guys that things look pretty bad but aren't EXACTLY as they appear to Damian, as he is an unreliable narrator. But I also totally get being mad at Jon right now, I am too :P
> 
> What do you guys think of Cain so far? Think Damian is making a mistake? :o


	4. Love is Fickle; Marriage is Forever

1 Week Before Invitations Are Sent

* * *

Damian kept to himself, a lot of the time. He was a lot like his dad in that way, didn’t like talking about how he was feeling, didn’t like feeling anything at all that wouldn’t benefit him on the field. Despite this, Damian also had inherited his dad’s tendency to be somewhat melodramatic. That’s, why, when Damian called a family meeting, nobody was exactly sure what to expect. Damian had done this before in the past, and the topic of the hour ranged anywhere from  _ this is our new family pet, I saved them from-- insert dangerous situation here-- and you are to treat them with love and respect… and fear _ to  _ Father is in trouble, he needs our help, even if he won’t say it _ .

Dick sat at the end of one couch, leg bouncing with trepidation. Stephanie sat in the middle, to his side, and Tim sat at the other end. Tim was staring at his phone, scrolling through social media or looking for evidence to solve a case, that was anyone’s guess. Stephanie was leaning on his shoulder, head resting at the crook of his neck as she watched his finger move up and down, up and down. Jason was strutting around the open space in the back, fingering the bridges of novels he’d read when he’d still been Robin. His helmet was tucked under his arm, a cognizant response to the past scoldings he’d received from Alfred and Bruce upon wearing it into the house. To everyone’s surprise, Bruce sat at the armchair beside the couch, leaned back with his arms on either end, brow raised in curious interest. Alfred stood behind him, polishing a tea kettle and its corresponding cups.

If Bruce was there, then it was probably nothing, right? It was probably just about a case, right?

It was only a few minutes later that Damian entered the room, head down, eyes lost, looking at nothing. Tim glanced up from his cellphone, Stephanie glanced up from his cellphone, and the rest of the family turned their attention to Damian as he stood front and center, hands folded behind his back. Like a soldier. It made Dick wince. “You’re all probably wondering why I have called you here today.”

“Um, yeah?” Jason twisted the helmet under his arm and set it at the table closest to him, pushing up against the vase filled with a single flower at the center. “You were kinda vague in your texts.” Vague enough that everyone was concerned.  _ Family meeting, 3 o’clock, at the manor. Second living room. _ Once again, not unlike Damian, but the way he was standing before them right then certainly was.

His nose scrunched. “As you are all aware, I haven’t been in contact with my mother for the better part of eight years.” The room fell quiet at the mention of Talia. Bruce grew tense, hand clutching at the armrest, fingers digging into the cushion. There were a million questions at once nobody wanted to ask. Had something happened to Talia? Was she calling Damian back home? Why would that be a consideration on Damian’s part? “That said, there were some… previous arrangements I was unaware of by the time I joined Father’s side.” His eyes shifted to Bruce, but only for a second, just long enough that they all caught it because that’s what their family did. They read each other. “A friend of my mother’s sought me out and approached me recently at the charity event in Downtown Gotham, if you remember, Father.”

Bruce hummed. “You said you felt sick. We went home early.”

Damian nodded. “In truth, I did feel sick. You see, this confidant of my mother’s, he came looking for me so that I might fulfill a promise Mother once made in my stead. It took some thought, but I have decided to follow through, rather than rescind, despite what my mother’s wishes may be.” Tension was something the Wayne family was used to. Inner conflict, household drama, it was a near constant between the walls of the manor, and hung like a miasma over the cave when it got really bad. That was nothing compared to the collective agitation of everyone in the room. Bruce hid the downturn of his lips behind his clasped hands, elbows at the rests as he leaned forward. Dick and Jason clenched their fists, ready to fight if they needed to, because Talia was never good news, not when it came to their youngest. Alfred had paused in his polishing, brows furrowing in British Concern. Tim turned off his phone, but Stephanie could see the way the tips of his fingers turned white as he clutched it in iron grasp. She was grabbing at his rested forearm with the same strain.

It was small, and maybe they wouldn’t have seen it if they didn’t know Damian as well as they did, but he took a deep breath-- a sign that he was nervous. Upset. Unsure. Behind him, his fingers danced together where his palms joined. His eyes turned downcast, just as they had when he’d shuffled into the room. Just like his dad, hiding what he was feeling, trying to appear indifferent. “In short, I’d like to introduce you all to my fiance, Cain Barnett.”

A young man paraded into the room, chin held high, blonde hair in messy curls swaying with each bouncing step. He was taller than Damian, had him by a good two inches, and when he came to a stop at his side, he clasped Damian’s hand in his own and held it at shoulder-level, waving with his other. “Hello!” His smile was wide, stretched from ear-to-ear, and the green of his eyes was positively wicked as they shined in Damian’s company. Jason hid his helmet behind his back.

The room fell silent. Too many questions, too many lines to draw, too many connections to be made, so they stayed quiet. Dick’s leg had stopped bouncing, Tim and Stephanie stiffened. Alfred blinked, Bruce’s mouth opened with words he hadn’t even thought yet, hanging in the air.

Jason started laughing.

“Oh! Oh my  _ god _ ! I’m not the family fuckup anymore!”

Bruce seemed to twitch, still deciding what persona to air, what words to say. Stephanie openly gawked, while Tim’s head tilted like a confused dog. Dick squinted at his brother and his…  _ fiance _ … for a moment. “Uh, Damian? You uh, you know you don’t have to, right? You’re not obligated to--”

“I am choosing to follow through with the engagement, Grayson. My mother has no influence over my decision.”

Tim glanced around the room, not quite frantically, but certainly with some desperation. He scratched at his head. “Does anybody else find it a little weird that Talia… betrothed him to a guy?” All eyes were on him in the next moment, and he raised his hands defensively. “I just mean that it’s a little weird for her! I wouldn’t think that this is something she’d, uh, support?” Jason continued his rib-busting cackling in the background.

Cain gave him a bright million-watt smile. “Of that you’d be right! Damian’s original betrothed was, in truth, my darling sister, Abele!”

“Wait! So this really isn’t--?” Stephanie grabbed Tim by the upper arm, smacking him with the other in the sort of disbelief a girl her age usually displayed watching a soap opera. Tim gawked.

“Demon Spawn, you’re…?”

Damian turned away. That was one revelation nobody had been expecting, not that anybody had been anticipating the sudden manifestation of a fiance, either. But to think that Damian had kept that from them, to think that none of them had noticed, to think that this was the first they were hearing of this at all-- it left the room reeling.

This truly was Damian’s choice? He wasn’t feeling forced? He  _ wanted  _ this guy?

Cain chuckled in that cordial, nervous way someone at an office dinner party might in response to a question with an answer that might get him in trouble. “That he is! Forgive me, I was under the impression that this was already somewhat common knowledge.” What? Like it’d been so obvious to him? When not a single one of his family members had a clue, even in  _ the slightest _ ?

Bruce cleared his throat into his fist, and the sudden lax of his posture told the whole room what he was thinking before he said a word. He shot Cain his most charming Bruce Wayne smile, the kind that made his children shiver because it was so not him. “I can appreciate a whirlwind romance as much as the next bachelor, Damian, but don’t you think this is--?”

“A little sudden?” Cain’s eyes glistened with delight, as though he’d been anticipating that exact response, and maybe he had. The white of his teeth made the fang in his smile all the more pronounced, and he entwined his fingers through Damian’s hands as he spoke. Damian seemed non too receptive. “I’ve been prepared to welcome Damian into my home my whole life, Mister Wayne. I never imagined it would be as a husband and not as a brother, but I assure you, this is no, how do Americans say it?  _ Shotgun wedding _ ?” Alfred stifled a laugh under the guise of a cough.

“What I believe Master Bruce is trying to say is, Damian is not of the legal marrying age in the US, and you are…?”

“I have seen 19 summers yet, Mister Pennyworth.”

Damian grimaced. “...and we’re not getting married here.” And that should have been expected, but it wasn’t, and jaws were dropping. “I knew there was a possibility you’d disapprove, Father. That’s why I’ve made arrangements to fly back to my homeland for the wedding, where the process would be entirely legal, with or without your consent.”

Bruce glanced from Damian to his fiance, who still stood upright and proud with a cheeky little grin, like he’d won a game the others hadn’t even been playing. Batman was behind the twitch in his brow, but Bruce Wayne stayed in control. “And what does your father think about this, Cain, was it?”

They were all starting to hate that taunting look on his face. “Cain Barnett, sir, and my father is a friend of the Al Ghuls. Has been for well over a decade. You tell me if you think he concerns himself with the legality of my business.” Jason scoffed. His thoughts were on the tip of everyone’s tongue.  _ What little prick _ .

Bruce hummed and hid his lips behind his entwined hands. From where they were sitting, everyone could see the grimace that was slowly building behind the Billionaire Playboy facade. What little neutrality the others portrayed was quickly becoming forfeit in their ire. “ _ Mister Barnett _ , would you mind if we speak to my son in private?” Cain nodded, all innocence, and squeezed Damian’s hand. Damian rolled his eyes. Cain turned on the heel and left through the double wide doors he’d entered from. Damian seemed less brave, without him there. He scowled at the ground, refused to meet the twenty eyes on him. He looked determined, but faded, sure of something and less sure of a million other things. Bruce Wayne was gone the moment Cain stepped out the doors, leaving Batman where he always was-- the wall between his son and a mistake. “Do you know what you’re doing, Damian?”

Marrying a friend of his mother’s, likely into a family of criminals. Marrying at 17, setting aside the fact that he hardly knew the guy. There were a million reasons Bruce might have had a problem with marrying his youngest son off to Cain Barnett, all of which made him see red, made him sick with worry. Then there was the media, how they’d take Damian’s betrothal, how the people of the city would look at their family when they found out that Damian had a fiance  _ all of the sudden _ , how Damian would handle the extra attention, how Jim Gordon himself would probably get on Bruce’s case about this. Then again, these things tended to happen to people in their line of work. Death could happen at any moment, especially for the most vulnerable of the heroes. Perhaps the issue was primarily with the betrothed, and the person who promised Damian’s hand in the first place.

Damian scoffed. “Of course I do, Father. I’ve thought this through well enough. The Barnett family is as well off as any family you could hope to marry me off to in Gotham. They are inconspicuous and keep a low profile, and what is there to find in the papers is nothing short of pristine. The publicity would be good for Wayne Industries, and considering their history with my mother, they are unlikely to go snooping or asking questions.” About his night job, about Robin. About Batman.

“Can’t be that pristine, if they’re friends of your mom’s…” Stephanie mumbled.

“Damian, we’re not worried about the media, we’re worried about you.” Dick leaned forward, trying his best to make contact with the eyes Damian kept averting. It worked, if only for a moment. Their eyes met. “What do  _ you _ want?”

That seemed to give Damian some pause. He blinked, eyes widening to betray that poker face he’d kept for what felt like an hour, for what was likely only ten or so minutes. He frowned again, less neutral, a twitch in his nose-- one of the few indicators of Damian’s pain. They were used to seeing that on his face when he came back from patrol. A bullet wound in his shoulder that he hid from Batman, a sprain in his wrist. That was the face he made when he was hiding seething pain that any Robin before him had felt. But there he was, not a scratch on him, hiding something that hurt. “I want to not have to concern myself with finding a husband when luck has so graciously offered me something convenient.”

“Marriage is not about convenience, Damian.” Bruce leveled his son with the glare, the Bat Glare. Barely concealed umbrage peeking out from his narrowed eyes. “Marriage is about teamwork. Understanding.”

Dick piped in: “Love.”

Something flashed in Damian’s eyes, a glimpse beyond the mask he was putting up, a wound to which they’d picked the scab. He scoffed again, turned his head away. “Love is fickle. This way, there’s no risk.”

“With the life we lead, any bit helps, Bat Brat.” Jason crossed his arms, kicked his helmet under the table despite Alfred’s warning eye. “You find happiness where ya can.” (Easy for him to say. When he was done at Wayne Manor, he’d head back to his safe house, and he’d find his girlfriend’s loving embrace not far from him the moment his foot would cross the threshold. He had Artemis. Dick had Kori. Love was something that made them stronger, and they didn’t feel the way Damian did, weren’t made weaker when they dropped their armor just so they could watch their lover set them aflame.)

“I’m with Jason”, Stephanie grabbed Tim’s hand and held tight. “Better to have loved and lost, and all that.”

Tim rubbed his thumb against Stephanie’s hand in warm, comforting circles. A reassurance that he was there, that she hadn’t lost him, a quiet promise that she never would. He raised an eyebrow at Damian’s stature. Shoulders hunched, body facing them but never opening up to them. Hiding something. He wasn’t sure what, but he could guess. “Besides, if you’re, uh… into guys… I always kinda thought you had something going on with Jon?”

Dick’s eyebrows raised, pieces of a puzzle inching and clicking together in his mind. Then an idea, and he flinched. If he was right, then it would explain a lot, but for once, he was kind of hoping he was wrong. Damian tensed even more, jaw clenching, teeth grinding, shoulders crunching.

Jason threw his head back and laughed. “The hell? The super scout who started banging on one of the speedsters--?”

Tim whipped around, throwing an arm over the back of the couch and swiping at Jason’s tittering form. “I mean, obviously not now, but like--!”

Damian’s fists balled and went so tight they turned his tan skin two shades lighter. “ _ I am marrying Cain Barnett! _ ” The room turned to him again, while he flinched, grimaced, stared at them all head-on for the first time in what must have been twenty minutes, by then. No determination, but spite. Heartache. Inexorable. “I’ve made my decision. You can either support me, or you can consider yourselves uninvited.”

“We would have been invited?” Stephanie elbowed Tim.

Bruce took a sparing glance at Alfred, who merely sighed to himself and shook his head. He looked to Damian, looking not pleased, but compliant. “You’ll marry here in Gotham. I’ll have the invitations sent out by the end of the week. Damian,” Their eyes met, father searching his son for something, askingly, cautiously, as though delivering a warning. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

(This was the part where Damian knew he should have said he’d never been more sure of anything in his life, because that’s what the actors in the movies always said, it was in every book he’d read, every song he’d have to now pick through to find an appropriate one for the wedding. That was not the way Damian felt.) He sighed. “I need to do this, Father.”

“Well then,” Alfred set the pot upon the tray, then turned to Damian as he wiped his hands clean of grime. “Will your fiance be staying for supper?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone wanted to know how the batfam would react to Damian's engagement!
> 
> Consensus? Not happy xD
> 
> This chapter was more in the batfam's POV than Damian's, and I hope that doesn't throw anybody off too much! I hope I kept everybody in character. I'm nervous, but I can always go back and fix stuff. That's why it's fanfiction! But yeah, let me know if anybody felt OOC, and def share how you think they would have more properly reacted so I can plan better ahead when writing them. It's not too late for me to change some aspects of my outline lol
> 
> Next chapter, we catch up to present time! Any guesses about what might go down after invitations are sent out? :P


	5. You Said You Loved Me

28 Days Before The Wedding

* * *

He spent a lot of his time in his room, as of late. Between his bed and the warm windowsill of the main living room, he found his mind quieting only when he had a book in one hand, or a pen with paper in the other. If he read a thousand words, painted a dozen pieces, he could keep his thoughts from muttering as many worriments. He’d read and reread The Iliad three times in the last week, and his notebooks were beginning to grow cramped as he squeezed new sketches onto occupied pages, despising the disorganization but relying on it nevertheless to occupy his thoughts. It was all he could do, really, being benched as Robin, having nowhere to go as Damian (stop that, stop that,  _ stop that _ , don’t think about Jon, don’t). Anything that left his hands or attention uninvolved left him lost in obtrusive, feckless thoughts. Memories of his training, the cruel admission that he was Father’s son  _ only by blood _ , the haunting of Jon welcoming Iris into his front door only moments after he’d kicked him to the curb. He could still hear her giggling, still peek through the window and see Jon’s hands on her, his lips on her skin, inching more and more as she granted him avenue to the places a blouse would normally hide.

Damian grinded his teeth and told himself that he wouldn’t cry, that he’d run out of tears, that he was moving on, now, and Jon would be a mere lesson. The lesson that love only got him hurt, that he could never trust anyone, no matter how trustworthy they seemed, not with his skin, not his heart, not with anything they couldn’t see beyond his armor. Love was for people who could take that pain, people like Grayson, or Drake, or even his father. Damian, well, he could take any poison, any bullet, any bruise and lost limb, he could even take the pain of death, but he wasn’t naive enough to think he was impervious to the wounds that reached within, not anymore. When he was younger, he’d have told anyone who asked that he had no fears, and there was no strain he couldn’t take, and he’d have been bold-facedly lying. He’d never been able to take mental tribulation, had never been good at stomaching his grief. He could channel it, well enough, into his fighting. That got him benched. So instead he elected to not think about it. The pain would go away eventually. He had a fiance, now, and finding companionship would be something he never had to worry about again.

There was a knock at his door, three small taps that resounded against the polished wood. Damian hummed. “Come in.”

The door opened, and Grayson peeked his head in from around the corner. “Hey, Lil’ D.”

“Grayson?” He set down his notebook and pen. It was rare that his brother visited the manor, anymore, let alone so soon. “What are you doing here?”

“Just wanted to come visit the little groom-to-be!”

Damian snorted and rolled his eyes, unable to hide his smile. Grayson always had a way of doing that to him, even more so as they years passed. Todd said he’d gotten soft. He told Todd he hoped Artemis couldn’t say the same about him. “The wedding is in a month. You’ll be seeing plenty of me between rehearsals and tux fittings.”

“Hah hah, I could never see too much of you, Lil’ D.” He strutted into the bedroom with one hand raised, patting him at the head and messing up his not-so-fastidiously-styled hair. Damian huffed and faked a scowl up at him, because he was no thirteen anymore, but Grayson knew and didn’t care. “I have to say, I wouldn’t have expected you to be the first Robin to get married off.”

“None of you had mothers meticulous enough to pick a bride for you.”

“And none of us decided to marry her brother, instead.” Grayson raised an eyebrow, cheeky smile on his warm face. Damian exhaled a laugh.”Though I gotta say, it’s a little odd that you’re going along with this. Usually you’d be the first to tell your mom to stuff it!”

Damian frowned and pushed aside his notebook, edging it under his bed. It wasn’t like he didn’t want Grayson seeing it, he’d seen his work often enough that it was hardly enough to blush over, but he needed something to do with his hands to keep from clenching unnecessarily. He knew his own ticks well enough to keep himself under control. “What exactly are you implying, Grayson?”

The smile on his face dimmed, brows furrowing to display something akin to empathy, concern? Caution? Grayson set his hands at his hips, tried to appear casual, like he wasn’t accusing him of anything. “I’m just saying, I…” Damian raised an eyebrow, and Grasyon seemed to heavily contemplate how the next words storming from his mouth would be sounding. “I just think maybe Tim was onto something, and maybe… with Jon and Iris--?”

Damian shot out of his bed, and Grayson took a startled step back. Good, because any closer and the sheer red hot rage blazing in his chest might have been enough to burn him. He could feel his skin turn to ember, and he tried to keep his face level, keep it so that Grayson couldn’t read anything he didn’t want him to. “Don’t be ridiculous. Superboy,” not Jon, not anymore “can date whoever he wants, be it Allen’s spawn or a Hamilton Harlot. I don’t care.” Grayson’s face twisted in disbelief, but he knew damn well his brother didn’t have the proof to back anything up. It was a hunch, a stupid whimsy idea that Drake had come up with that just stuck to Grayson because maybe some things lined up. Correlation was not causation, though, and if he wanted to go around pointing fingers and calling Damian out of character, then he’d need some cold hard proof. Good luck with that. Jon was the one who wanted to keep them secret. If Damian didn’t talk, Jon sure as hell wouldn’t. (Belatedly, he wondered if that should have been his first clue.) “My business is my own, and I’ll leave him to his.”

He turned and stomped out of the room. He didn’t notice Dick’s eyes trailing after him, filled with empathy and unease.

* * *

27 Days Before The Wedding

* * *

White roses, red, bushes of baby’s breath, red and white and pink carnations. Sprinkled among the round, white-clothed tables were bachelor’s buttons of blue. A single iris flower sat at the center of every table. A small wooden stage sat at the end of an aisle, where a white tapestry led to the leading steps. The tables sat at either side, eight chairs to each, where guests could gaze up and see the stars in the night sky among the twinkling fairy lights that crossed and tied to the white light posts where gyre bulbs lit the path below. The space glowed and seemed to hum with sureness and elation, all without familiar faces to flock into its spaces and music to strum and set the mood. The gardens did that just fine without the assist, and he dared think that such tailored merriment would have felt gratuitous in the company of what truly was, in and of itself, a fantastical dreamscape.

Damian gaped at the vision, taking in the water fountain that ran tranquil and beautiful off to the right with the tables for the catering. This was where he was going to  _ get married _ . It was brighter than he’d ever thought he’d have liked for himself, but it sat right with him. It was symbolic, he supposed, as all weddings were. Bright, white, happy, optimistic. The dirt path line with bushes of flowers and trees and strung lights led round a corner to a small square chapel. White-painted wood, a cross atop the a-frame roof. Damian had never considered himself religious, and hadn’t grown up with believers on either his mother’s side or his father’s. It seemed ridiculous, when he knew what he did, knew Raven, knew Constantine, and the concept of a god became superfluous.

He supposed the Barnett family did not feel the same way, and he was fine with that. It didn’t matter to him where he took his vows, so long as it happened. He couldn’t have cared less if they eloped to another country and got married in a courtroom. This wedding wasn’t about  _ love _ , nor about money like marriages in Gotham City so often were, so why make it sentimental? Well, because his fiance wanted to. He wondered if marrying Abele would have been less of a hassle.

Cain stood at his side, green eyes alight, happy, calm. He held Damian’s hand, had been holding his hand since they’d set foot in the parking lot. They were warm together, palms turned, fingers interlaced, and Damian was almost sure he’d heard Cain’s heart beating. Or his own. Cain turned to him with a small smile, unlike his typical lewder stares. “Do you want to see the best part?”

Damian raised an eyebrow. “Sure.”

Like a child, Cain held their hands up and ran into the grass, giddy smile and bubbling laughter in his chest as Damian stumbled at the sudden movement and found the right pace again to move his hurried feet. They ran forward, through the tables and pulled-out chairs with reckless abandon, only for a moment.

The area Cain brought him to was to the right of the stage, a grassy plain overlain with a wood floor, golden brown and polished, shining under the strung lights above. Damian imagined it in the nighttime, what it would look like as Grayson and Kori danced together, with her arms over his shoulders and his lips on hers. He could see Drake and Brown, too, see Drake leading her in a dance she didn’t know with near perfect, strategic steps. He could see him dipping herand hear her laugh, see Drake lean down with a smile to kiss her, or try to, because they’d both be smiling far too much for there to be any real liplocking. “This is where we’re going to have our first dance as newlyweds. You and I, surrounded by your new pride. Isn’t that exciting?”

He tried to picture himself and Cain in the middle of it all, tried to picture how it would feel to have his hand at Cain’s shoulder, trailing down to his chest, what it may look like as Cain took initiative to lead him, pressing small tender kisses to the back of his hand. He tried to put that vision at centerfloor, see himself dancing with a man he’d have only known for a month by the time he was calling him  _ his _ . He thought about the family that he hadn’t met yet, the other half of the wedding party, the other eyes he couldn’t yet see, watching him as he and Cain moved for the first time as partners. Damian could only mumble “Yeah…”

Cain glanced at him from the side, soft smile quirking at the corner of his lips. He squeezed Damian’s hand.

* * *

26 Days Before The Wedding

* * *

A very small list of people knew where the batcave was. Some members of the Justice League, namely Diana, Clark, Hal, Barry… Only a select few of the Titans knew where the batcave was. It was Bruce’s sanctuary more than it was the safe haven of any of his boys, after all. None of Batman’s enemies seemed to have figured it out, yet, either. Harley Quinn had somehow gotten closer than anyone would have liked, but then again, she was more of an antihero than a villain nowadays. Chaotic Neutral, Tim always called her.

That was why, when the security alert started ringing, everyone was on the defensive. As soon as the fluorescent lights of the batcave dissolved into an angry red, and the whining, ear-piercing screeches of the alarm went off, Batman was at the ready. He stood, fists barred, and Red Robin wasn’t far behind him, staff at the ready, palm raised to the tip, clutching just barely. Nightwing crouched into a fighting position, one hand raised, knees bent. They had to be prepared for anything. Scarecrow, with his toxins and nightmares, Ivy, with her thorns and poisons, Joker, who would have been dumb to carry a crowbar anywhere near the batcave, but was just wild enough that he might have had that and a million other things up his sleeve. Anybody smart enough to find their way to the cave was a threat, a big one, at that.

To everyone’s surprise, it wasn’t. At least, maybe not to them. From the entrance of the cave, where Batman usually drove the batmobile in and out, came a hunched, hulking frame. Shoulders tense and raised, hands in fists that turned inward to the rest of the body, and a snarl on the lips, curving downward and upward and barring the thinnest glance of white teeth. Most telling was the red cape that hovered in the wind, throbbing with every step their intruder took forward. The yellow S that usually stood so valiantly for peace seemed much more threatening next to the glaring red of Superboy’s eyes. Red Robin and Nightwing dropped their defensive positions, while Batman stayed firm. “Jon?”

“Where’s Damian?” It was less of a question, more of a statement. A demand.

Red Robin raised an eyebrow, jutting his thumb in the direction of the staircase leading up to the manor. “Uh, he’s upstairs in the library--?”

Superboy stormed right by him, not even so much as waving goodbye or hello as he took off up the stairs. Nightwing and Red Robin glanced at each other, confused. Nightwing cocked an eyebrow. Red Robin glanced from his brother to the stairs. They looked at each other, shrugging. Batman let his guard fall and faced the direction Jon had disappeared to, eyes narrowing.

* * *

_ The Kiss Thief, The Unwanted Wife, Arranged, Gone With the Wind, _ all novels he’d found in the library, titles he’d found situated in the position of an arranged marriage. He’d been curious, hoping that maybe he could find some guidance in the sea of novels his father and his father’s father had accumulated over the years. The assumption most made about an arranged marriage was that there was no happiness to be found afterwards, that your life is ruined the moment you choose to marry based on wealth or social standing rather than, as Grayson put it,  _ love _ . That was the western view of it, anyhow. The other western view was that  _ you’d learn to love them eventually _ , and that bothered Damian because that was not what he was looking for. He didn’t want to fall in love a second time, that was the whole point of agreeing to marry Cain to begin with. He was hoping he’d find a story about someone finding happiness outside of their convenient union, be it in the workplace or a hobby, maybe a dream to follow? But they were all the same.

The protagonist hated their betrothed (which he could relate to), they come to an understanding (which he could relate to less so), and then, somewhere along the way, the protagonist  _ actually falls in love _ , which dismayed and quite frankly revolted him. He tossed the books aside and scoffed. He would not be falling in love, never again, and certainly not with Cain Barnett of all people. Why wasn’t there a single damn book that understood where he was coming from, what he was feeling?

The door to the library slammed open with a ferocious bang, and Damian, ashamedly, jumped.

There at the doorway was Jon, open palm on the door, scowl on his face, fist clenched at his side so tightly he thought the skin was turning more pale than it usually was. Damian’s heart leaped into his throat. The last time he’d seen Jon…

_ “Damian, p-please you’re my best friend. I can’t- I need you. Just don’t do this.” _

_ “Just- just go Jon. You make me sad.” _

He hated how affection welled in his chest as the sight of him, like he’d never hurt him, like his heart had already forgiven Jon for a crime he wasn’t even sorry for. He hated how he saw the strength in Jon’s arms, in his spread fingers over the wood of the door, and felt almost libidinous. He wanted to feel his muscles move under his hands, to press against him and lean up until he could trap his lips between his own, bite and suck and swallow him as he’d feel his body responding under the heat of his slow hands. He had to actively remind himself that it wasn’t like Jon had cheated on him (even if it felt that way) and wanted him back, that it wasn’t like all that was standing between the two of them was Damian’s hurt and his pride.  _ Jon didn’t want him. _ Never had. He’d been an experiment, unbeknownst to him, and the two of them had come to wildly different conclusions. Damian put on his best poker face. “That was awfully rude of you, Farm boy.”

“Cut it out, Damian. Who is he?”

Damian fixed him with a neutral, untouched stare, the kind Alfred always gave them, the british attitude. He stepped down from the footstool so he stood at his natural height, an inch or two below Jon. Three feet away from Jon. From the boy who was now his  _ ex _ . “Who is who?”

Jon took three steps forward, and Damian raised his chin, trying to look unfazed, intimidating. Jon scowled down at him. “Cain Barnett.  _ Your fiance _ .” He spat the words out the way Todd spat Joker’s name, the way Drake sometimes spat his grandfather’s name. He must have gotten the invitations. He supposed it made sense that his father would have thought to invite the Kent Family. Couldn’t imagine what this looked like to Jon. Wasn’t sure he cared.

Damian glanced down at his wrist where his watch was. “An old friend. What does it matter?”

“It _matters,”_ Jon growled, “because I’ve never heard of this guy before. You never mentioned him.”

Damian glanced away with feigned disinterest. “Hm. That’s because I’d forgotten about him, until recently.”

Jon’s expression flittered between an array of emotions, from that of scorn, to uncanny bewilderment, to disbelieving rage. “So you  _ marry him _ ?” He was getting louder in his fit, and that simply wouldn’t do. He didn’t want his brothers, or heaven help him his father, hearing the particulars of their discussion. Jon didn’t want the world to know that he’d ever had his tongue in Damian’s mouth, and it was partly out of malicious compliance that he was looking to keep this between them.

“Lower your voice.” He shot a pointed glance at the open door and the hallway beyond, and Jon seemed to follow, reigning in his anger, unclenching the muscles Damian wanted so badly to touch. “I hardly see what the fuss is about.”

Jon glared down at him, hurt clear in the creases of his brow, the dimness of his eyes. He looked so unlike himself, so much paler than he had ever been. He wondered if it was because Jon had been inside more often than he’d been out, if Iris was keeping him so attached to the bed that-- that thought made his stomach twist painfully. “The fuss? The fuss is that just three weeks ago, you were reminding me that  _ you said you loved me _ , and now you’re getting ready to walk down the aisle like some blushing bride?”

Damian scoffed. “I won’t be blushing, and I am no bride. I fail to see how this concerns you.”

Jon blinked at him, looking caught off guard. Then he exhaled a laugh. “Really? After all of that talk about how looking at me  _ made you sad _ , you go and throw yourself at some random guy you maybe kind of knew once? Yeah, you sound real hurt, Damian!”

No. Oh no,  _ he was not. How dare he _ \-- Damian let down his mask, because while he didn’t want Jon to see just how broken he was, seeing his outrage was normal, and boy was he feeling particularly bitter. “My engagement to Cain has nothing to do with you! Unlike you, I was always,  _ always _ sincere!”

“Oh yeah?” Jon got even closer, bowed up on Damian so they were chest-to-chest, nostrils flaring. “Have you been crying every night for three freaking weeks? Have you been listening for my heartbeat just to make sure I was still  _ there _ ?” Was any of that true? Had his absence been killing the boy made of steel that much? He didn’t know. He wanted to believe that, wanted to believe that this whole thing felt as much to Jon like a blow straight to the back of the knees as it was to Damian. But did it even matter? He missed him because they’d been best friends, partners, not because he loved him, and maybe that would melt somebody else, but for Damian, it just wasn’t enough.

“I don’t know, Jon, have you seen the only person you’ve ever loved walking around with somebody else’s lipstick print on their neck?” Jon flinched, and suddenly that mettle and valor were gone. His blue eyes widened, confused, hurt, sympathetic? Damian didn’t want his pity, didn’t want anything from him if he couldn’t have it all. He knew it was immature, selfish, but it was the truth. That damn burning in his eyes started again, welling up, like somebody had taken the tip of a cloth, doused in bleach, took it to his throat and his eyes just to make him close up and water. No, he would not cry in front of Jon, never. Nobody could know it’d been so easy to shatter the Demon Son so completely. “Tell me, tell me what that’s like! If you’ve ever laid awake, wondering how somebody else is touching the one you love. If you’ve ever replayed every damn conversation back, wondering where you went wrong, where you lost the love of your life, then by all means, tell me. Explain to me how it feels in every goddamn detail.”

Jon stared back at him, blinking, lips, the same lips he wanted so, so horribly to kiss, parted to say words that he couldn’t find. His hands opened and closed at either side, grasping for what, he wasn’t sure. Whatever fight he’d had in him seemed to disappear as fast as he’d ever seen him fly, with eyes that begged him for something he wasn’t sure he could, with fear. He deflated, tension giving way to exhaustion. Damian made to move past him, but found Jon had just enough strength to grab his passing wrist. His fingers brushed the bottom of his palm, and it pained him how badly he wanted Jon to just hold his hand. “You can’t marry him.” His heart skipped in his chest, because that’s exactly what the protagonist of those novels would want to hear, because what always followed was the  _ why _ . But Damian knew, knew his luck, knew Jon too well. He wouldn’t be hearing the words he wanted to hear. He said nothing, and Jon turned his head to whisper to him, again. [“You… you still love me, don’t you?”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlHcyBpQspM)

Damian winced, and Jon’s grip tightened on his wrist like he was afraid Damian would run away. Well, he wanted to. He wished he could. He turned his head so Jon couldn’t see the way his face twisted in pain. “I do…”

“So you can’t.” Jon’s grip tightened again, not enough to hurt, but enough to tell Damian what he was thinking, fearing, what Damian knew was coming. So close, his hand was so close to holding his, but that wouldn’t happen. It never should have in the first place. “You can’t marry him.”

Damian let him hold his wrist. He raised his other hand to grab him by the bicep, and Jon turned to look at him with big, hopeful eyes, tinted with just the smallest bit of fear--  _ fear that Damian would try to kiss him _ . Damian took a deep breath, looked into his eyes, hoped he’d never have to do this again. Hoped Jon wouldn’t even come to the damn wedding if it made him sickeningly desperate for his touch. Jon looked back. “It’s because of you, Beloved, that I must.”

He slipped out of Jon’s grasp and moved out of the room.

Jon curled in on himself where he stood, hanging his head as his fists clenched at his sides. The cape fell limp against his back, and the blues and reds that filled the people of Metropolis with hope seemed to fade and dull as Jon closed his eyes.

* * *

25 Days Before The Wedding

* * *

Cain didn’t tell him what, exactly, they were doing. He’d called Damian that morning, said very little. “8am, My Love, I’ll come by and pick you up. Be ready!” It made him scoff. He glanced at his fiance, who was bouncing around animatedly in his seat, looking at each passing building with all the excitement of Titus or Ace taken on a walk. What it was about Gotham City he found so entrancing, Damian wasn’t sure, but he didn’t consider it his business, so he didn’t ask. Damian sighed and shift the tilt of his jaw at the back of his hand, pressing his head to the glass of the limo’s window.

He was awfully bored, though.

“What exactly are we doing?”

Cain’s head whipped on him, wide eyes all innocence and joy. He definitely resembled an overstimulated dog. “Why, I’m merely making it official!” Damian raised an eyebrow.

It was at that very moment that the car pulled up to what was very clearly a jewelry shop, and Damian knew exactly what it was they were there for. Cain shot up out of the car, paying no head for the traffic coming his way. Damian watched with mild disbelief as he very nearly dodged a car, tip-toeing his way around to Damian’s side and opening the door. He hardly got a foot out before Cain was yanking on his hand.

The store was small, rectangular, but the prices reflected the worth of the big, impressive diamonds that sat beneath the glass. Each piece was well over what Damian was sure equaled three of the typical Gothamite’s paychecks, which meant that this place was not a Mum & Pop sideshow for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but a small store who catered to the eccentric rich. He was vaguely amused at how well that described Cain. He smiled at Damian, chest puffed, looking terribly proud of himself. “You can pick anything you want, My Love, no price tag is too big!”

Damian rolled his eyes. “I’m not a  _ girl _ , Barnett. I won’t swoon over a diamond ring.”

Cain looked almost scandalized with the hand at his chest. “We should be wearing matching rings if we’re to be wed, should we not?”

“This is completely unnecessary.”

Cain leaned forward, grin again looking scornfully lewd. “To you, maybe, but I quite like the idea of marking my property.”

Damian whipped around to yell at him, to tell him that he was not, and never would be,  _ Cain’s Property _ , but the clerk chose that very moment to make an appearance, and the words were lost to the test of time. Damian glared at Cain when she wasn’t looking. Cain smiled back.

They glanced through the rings, a very large variety of them. Some were big, fanciful, the kind covered in small jewels and ornate designs, rings he couldn’t imagine going well with anything. Some rings were smaller, mostly the ones for women. Tiny bands with a diamond at the center, unassuming, the kind he’d think that Brown would go for if Drake ever got the guts to propose. He filed that away, in the case that he found his brother searching for rings and felt gracious enough to offer his two cents. Then there were rings that were gold and had one large jewel at the center, purple, more gold, green, yellow, red. He cringed.

It wasn’t until the near end of the line that Damian’s eyes caught on one, the way a fish nibbles and latches to a hook.

It was a silver band, elegant carvings at either side, bolstering up a square diamond at its finely molded center. The diamond was larger, but not as meretricious as the gaudier rings, and if he tilted his head the right direction, the light caught its crisp edges, and in those moments, he could see blue. Familiar blue, inspiring blue, and he couldn’t look away. Cain glanced at him with his green eyes from the side. “Miss? I think my fiance would like to try this one.”

Damian startled “Wh-What? No, I’m fine! I don’t need to try on some stuipd--!”

But the clerk was already taking it out of the box, already polishing it before she took Damian’s relenting finger and slipped it on. And it fit perfectly. Damian lost his breath.

It shined at his finger, like a beacon, and it was so odd, because he didn’t want it, but he… didn’t want to take it off. It was his size, as though it had been meant for his finger, even though he knew anybody in the world could have come along and snatched it up and gotten it resized. Could have, but didn’t, and he knew, now that he was looking down at it, that he’d be wearing that ring the rest of his life. It didn’t matter if he wanted to or not, it was his, and there was no getting rid of it.

Cain smiled at him, then leaned over the counter to whisper to the clerk. “We’ll take that one and that one I was looking at earlier.”

* * *

Damian reached for the box as soon as they were out of the store doors, and Cain raised it out of his reach. Damian scoffed and reached upwards. “Just-- give me the ring!”

“Ah, ah, ah! I don’t think so, My Darling Fiance!” Cain waved one ‘scolding’ finger at him before he stuck the box in the pocket of his suit pants. Damian scowled at him, but it didn’t have the same effect it usually had on people. Cain only smiled wider. “You seem awfully keen to wear a ring you didn’t want in the first place!” Damian opened his mouth to retort, to remind Cain that he was talking about making their engagement ‘official’, that he hadn’t even wanted to bother with it, but he had a right to wear it if he wanted to. Cain raised one hand as if to silence him preemptively. “You’ll get your ring, My Love, if you let me take you to dinner tomorrow night.”

“W-Wha--What are you--? You can’t be--!” Damian sputtered, trying to find words that would convince him he was stupid, that he should just give him his own ring right that instant because it was his, but he couldn’t. And he really, really wanted that damn ring. Cain watched him with eyes full of anticipation, and a, for once, unobtrusive smile. He thought, if he squinted, he could see a dog’s tail wagging happily behind his back. Damian breathed in, then took a hefty breath out. “Fine, but I get to pick the restaurant.”

* * *

“Jon?” Lois knocked at her son’s bedroom door, then huffed when she didn’t get a response.

She twisted the handle, in hindsight without regard for the fact that her son was, in fact, a teenage boy, and shoved the door open. “Jonathan Samuel Kent, you have chores you need to do, Mister. And they’re not going to get done if you’re still sleeping in your bed!”

Jon was, in fact, huddled up on his covers, back turned to her as he breathed in, breathed out. His legs were curled to his chest, and the boy of steel looked more like a ball as he huddled into himself for warmth. “I’m not…” He turned over, and the eyes that had been so listlessly staring out the window found hers in bloodshot red. There were bags under his eyes, more than she’d seen in the earlier nights of their marriage that Clark stumbled in from a Justice League mission that had been particularly grueling. She hadn’t seen her son’s eyes so heavy in a very long time. She winced.

“Oh, honey…” She pushed the door open the rest of the way, noticing how the light of the hallway was the only source of brightness in Jon’s otherwise pitch black room. Lois sat at the edge of his bed and placed a hand at his curled hip. “It’s not like you to get sick.”

“I’m not sick, I’m just…” He didn’t finish his sentence. He just stared down at his blanket-covered hands and blinked.

Lois frowned. “Is this about Damian?”

Jon said nothing, but he did wince. Ah, that made sense. He hadn’t said much about it since they’d gotten the invitation in the mail. That was odd, she and Clark had both decided, because they’d thought for sure that Damian would have been the one to tell Jon, and that Jon would have been his Best Man. That’s what best friends did. That’s what they’d always thought their son would do. “Jon, honey, I’m sure Damian has a reason for not telling you about Cain. Why don’t you ask?”

To her surprise, Jon sat up and scoffed. “I did ask, Mom, and Damian said he didn’t even know the guy.”

Lois blanched, not quite sure if she heard her son correctly, because that sounded… so  _ not _ like Damian, and certainly not at all like his father to let him do such a rash thing. A shotgun wedding? In Gotham City’s papers? What in the world was he thinking? “That is so irresponsible! Something else has to be going on, you need to talk to him!”

“I already did, Mom! He wouldn’t listen!” Jon winced at the height of his own voice, hands reaching up to run over his face, then grab at his hair. His fingers tangled in his messy ink locks, and his face scrunched up in pain, pain she couldn’t just kiss away, pain she’d been yet to encounter with him. She’d seen him upset before, seen him mad at himself, disappointed, incensed at the injustice the world sometimes handed to its patrons, but the boy on the verge of tears next to her looked so unlike her son, right then. “He wouldn’t listen…”

Lois sighed, mentally crossing her fingers that Clark would do a better job of comforting their child when he got home. For the moment, she wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him into her arms. “You boys will get through this, Jon. I promise. You’re best friends.”

(Jon grimaced even as he soaked up his mother’s embrace, biting back the response that was at the tip of his tongue. He wasn’t sure him and Damian were anything, anymore.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO!!!! How do we feel right now, guys? :D Where do you think things are going from here? What do you guys thinks about Jon's fight with Dami? I... hope they're both in character here xD As I said, I'm just trying my best.
> 
> Let me know if you guys think I could improve on anything, and if there are things you want to see, things you DON'T want to see, things you think are gonna happen. I make no promises, but it's nice to see your comments and ideas ^_^ Thanks so much for everyone supporting me so far! We have awhile to go still before this story reaches its end!


	6. Marry Me

24 Days Before The Wedding

* * *

Cain had been true to his word. 6 o’clock sharp, his car appeared at the front gates of Wayne Manor, and begrudgingly, Damian dressed himself a tailored button-up with a fitted pair of slacks, and met his fiance outside. The drive took only a handful of minutes, as he’d chosen a steak house he’d become familiar with as of recent. (Vegetarian options, a fanciful selection of desserts, and though he was not yet old enough to partake, an extensive collection of aged wines). Cain had already made the reservations, and Damian wasn’t sure if he was surprised by the forethought, or intrigued by the eagerness to please.

He looked into his glass, filled to the brim with sparkling water, bubbling and popping as his eyes stared back at him amidst the red of grenadine. “What do you remember of our family?” Cain smiled at him over the candlelight, chin resting atop his laced fingers. His green eyes flicked between tamed amusement and fervent hunger-- for what, Damian was unsure, be it food or something more in the nature of flesh, and he didn’t care to differentiate. But those eyes almost looked red in the low light of their balcony table.

What did he recall of the Barnetts? Well, he remembered his mother’s mention of them, and in hindsight, wondered if the sly curl of her lip had been a tell of what was to come. Cain made it sound like Abele had been promised to him all along, which meant few interactions with his mother implicating them had been purely conversational. “I remember your father,” Damian sipped at his glass. Cain leaned forward with interest. “I remember Mother talking about him.” Aiden Barnett, the man with the golden brown hair and the mustache that hid the smile in the curve of his lip. The man with eyes he could only vaguely recall, gruff and hard to read under the furrowed eyebrows.

“So you really don’t remember Abele and I? Not at all?”

“I’m afraid not.”

The candle flickered, and so did the smile on Cain’s face. The darkness hid him well, but he wasn’t trained to mask emotion the way Damian had been (he assumed). His mouth tipped downward, for just a moment, but he saw it nevertheless. He readjusted so that his hands hid the half of his face that fell below his nose, trying to hide it, failing miserably. Damian felt his stomach twitch. “I’m sorry. I try not to remember most of my time at The League.”

Cain raised an eyebrow at him, disbelieving, perturbed.  _ Why? _ He masked it with a smile. “No need to apologize, My Love. This simply would have been easier if you had some baser recognition of myself or my family, a foundation, if you will, to build upon.”

Damian raised an eyebrow. “Does it matter? It’s not as though you’re familiar with me, either. You’re familiar with the Grandson of the Demon, and I’m afraid that individual no longer exists.”

Cain smirked at him, again looking not only skeptical, but dismissively aporetic. His long fingers reached out and graced the edge of his glass, running in slow, amourous circles, fingertips rising up in almost rhythmic motions, nails catching at the salted rim. “Would you like to test that theory, My Love?” He raised his coated middle finger, pressing it against his lips until the salt dripped like melted nectar to his patient tongue.

Damian’s brow twitched. “My hobbies, what are they?”

Cain exhaled a laugh. “You have quite the expert hand, and yes I mean in art. But you’re quite talented at acting, as well, a skill bestowed upon you from your time as the Demon’s Grandchild. I think you’re not as detached from your roots as you think.”

“That was an easy question, Cain, don’t get ahead of yourself.” He rested his elbow on the table, set aside his drink and rested his jaw at his balled hand. “What does my diet look like?”

“Vegetarian, clearly. We’re at a steakhouse and you ordered a salad. I was unsure of your love of animals after you dispersed my kittens to other warm homes, but I suppose this is proof enough I was correct in my assumptions.”

“My favorite place?”

“It used to be your private room in Nanda Parbat, but now I guess it would be your room at the manor.” Well, his favorite place was often the batcave, more specifically the training grounds, but he supposed without unveiling his identity, that was the truest answer he could give.

“My weapon of choice.”

“The Zhanmadao Ming, that hasn’t changed, has it?”

Damian’s finger twitched at the edge of the table. “Want to test my skills?”

Cain raised an eyebrow. “I doubt you’ve grown rusty, My Love.”

For a moment, his heart stopped, because the smirk on his face laid implications he’d have rather found earlier. Did he know he was Robin? By extension, did he know his father was Batman? That his brothers held alter egos? He bit at the inside of his lip. He had to calm down. It was only a possibility, and neither of them had proof to back his theory or what Cain thought he knew. It only made sense, then, that he learn the same. “Fair enough. Though I’ve been rather rude, haven’t I? I’m afraid I don’t know you quite so  _ intimately _ .”

Cain chuckled, lifting his glass to his lips to sip, eyeing Damian beyond the raging candlelight. “Ask away, My Love.”

“Your hobbies.”

“My hobbies, hm?” Cain smiled and crossed his arms over the table, eyes glancing downward, low under his batting eyelashes.

* * *

Their food arrived not long after the moon had risen in the sky and the first stars shined, so close and so, terribly far. Cain shared over bites of filet mignon and garlic potatoes that he fancied himself a film critic, and that he helped his father handle the finer points of business from time to time, acting as the eventual heir to a good fortune, “after all”. He said he quite liked it. Damian found the salad satisfactory, decided that he’d go to the steakhouse more often. Cain shared that he went horseback riding with his sister, whenever the appetite for freedom struck. Dinner came and went, waiters stopped by to refill their glasses, clear their plates. Cain ordered them dessert, and Damian couldn’t quite recall what he’d ordered. (He’d ordered shiruko for Damian, something less sweet than the other desserts, just be safe, while he’d ordered himself some mont blanc).

Cain’s favorite place was his family manor’s backyard, and Damian thought that made sense, considering he’d picked a venue full of blooms and green grasses at which to marry. He told Damian it was the only time he got fresh air, stepping outside to have tea after a grueling work day (Cain said this-- work day-- the way someone else might have used quotation marks to accentuate) with his sister, under an umbrella at their terrace, overlooking the gardens and fields, below. Cain fiddled with the knife their waiter brought in preparation of dessert, smile slick and precarious as he ran his fingers up and down the spine. Cain told him that his mother’s name was Gertrude, that his sister was born roughly 14 months after he’d been born, that his mother and father hadn’t had children since.

“Do you want children?” It was an innocent question, more innocent than Cain had ever been with him. It was asked innocently, curiously, with one hand prodding at his dessert with his fork. Damian took a bite of his shiruko and raised an eyebrow, for once with little intent to mock.

“It would be impossible for you and I to conceive.” Did he really have to remind his fiance that they were both  _ men _ ?

Cain laughed into his hand and shook his head. “I have ways around that.”

“Ways around our biology? I’d love to know what black market tech you’ve got stuffed away in your prissy british manor.”

“It’s perfectly legal, what I have in mind. A recent-- recent as in the last 50 years-- breakthrough has made conception for the wealthy such as us very possible. I have on good word that it’s effective. A family friend was responsible for the funding, and he’s created life with this method himself, if only the once.” That sparked more questions than it provided answers. The name of his friend? Why hadn’t the media gotten a hold of such a huge technological breakthrough? What life had been created, exactly, and had it lived to see more than, say, a day? Cain choked a bit on his drink, waving one dismissive hand. “Ignoring the obstacles, My Love, do you want children?”

Damian hummed and twirled his empty fork in a small circle on the plate. A tough question, maybe, for some, for him it was merely personal. But, he supposed, if he were going to speak of such private things with anybody, it would have to be his fiance. “I always thought that I would. It was my duty as the grandson of Ras Al Ghul. Take over one day, provide an heir.” Cain settled his fork against his empty plate, fixed Damian with a goading stare. Damian turned his attention to his plate, tried to pretend his eyes weren’t baring into him. “Now? Now that I have forsaken the Al Ghul name? I simply want for them. To give them the life I could have had with my father, to be there.” The way he’d never had. Because that’s what being a father meant, right? Trying to do better, be better, always. He hoped that someday he could give his blood the world, teach compassion as well as fire, protect their flames until they became so much bigger than he’d ever been, until they were roaring bonfires that nothing on the face of their earth or the next could snuff out.

Cain reached across the table, and to Damian’s surprise, he slipped his hand into his, laced their fingers together, squeezed. Damian did not squeeze back. Cain smiled at him, and it was soft, so soft, but there was something so sharp in his eyes, the way they narrowed, the shadow of a Gotham night falling over his face as the candle betimes shook and trembled in the thick air. “You will be an excellent father, My Love.”

Damian reigned in his expression, kept a leveled face as he met his stare for stare. “Will be?”

“Of course.” Cain’s smile seemed to grow all the sweeter as he tilted his head towards the flame. “I will give you as many children as you wish. I need you to know, whatever you want, it’s yours. My soul,  _ my body _ , you can do with me, use me as you please. I will never complain.”

Against his will, Damian felt his cheeks grow hot. “We are in public,  _ Ameli. _ You forget yourself.”

If he hadn’t been expecting that reaction, he hid it well. Cain’s eyes lit up, tauntingly, full of merriment. “We are to be wed, My Love, such talk over candlelight is commonplace.”

He was right, of course, the more Damian thought about it. He recalled the few nights he’d gone on patrol with Nightwing while Batman put his duties on hold to take a lover on a date as Bruce. Selena, specifically, he recalled coming across as Robin, swinging by a window as his father leaned forward and whispered something dirty enough to make even Kyle laugh. He supposed that was just the way lovers were, when they were allowed to be lovers. He winced. That didn’t mean it wasn’t embarrassing. Though… he supposed it was kind of nice, to flaunt their companionship so readily to the public. He’d never had that before, not as a son, not as a lover.

Cain pulled out of his seat and dropped down on one knee. Damian tensed.

“W-What are you--?”

Cain gave him his best Hollywood smile as the heads started to turn. “Someone as traditional as you deserves a true gentleman. Forgive my rudeness, I should have done this sooner.” He reached into his pocket, and to Damian’s surprise-- despite the clues, despite how obvious the trail was, despite how clear it all was and should have been-- Cain pulled out a small square box. There was a shiver down his spine as Cain inched it open, presenting the very ring, the ring that earlier caught his eye, and now caught his breath. Blue, and as bright as the sun itself even in the frame of the night. It shined. It looked like, felt like home. It felt like tall towers over cities full of nightlife, like adventure, like adrenaline, like a back against his with the blood pumping in his veins, so familiar. It felt like fire, the sun itself, sitting in the palm of Cain’s hand. Most men would have looked nervous, but, then again, there wasn’t truly any reason to be, not on Cain’s part. He knew what he’d say, because he’d said it already. (So why did he suddenly feel nervous, when the end was inevitable?)

Cain grinned up at him, blonde hair catching wind and blowing, blowing his eyes up and lighting them with the light of their only candle. All eyes were on them, and Damian’s shiruko sat forgotten, momentarily, at the table. Damian glared down at him as the heat under his collar reached his cheeks.

“I want you to show the world that you are cherished, My Love, that there is a man out there who has spoken for you and wishes only to earn your heart as any lover should. Damian Wayne, will you marry me?”

And suddenly it was like the thousands of eyes weren’t even there. It was only him, only Cain, in a moment that he should-- would-- remember for the rest of his life. He found himself squirming in his seat, lips wobbling, eyes locked despite how terribly they wanted to tear away. His fingers grasped aimlessly at the edges of his seat, tapping in no specific rhythm as he clenched and unclenched as the shivers in his body demanded of him.

Damian swallowed.

Haltingly, hauntingly, he raised his hand in offering. Cain smiled at him, and he glared back. “...yes, I will marry you.”

Cain’s face went from taunting to alight with unrestrained glee. The restaurant broke into uproarious applause as his future husband slipped that ring onto his finger, and Damian startled as Cain swept his chin into his hand and wrenched him forward.

Cain’s nose brushed side-by-side at his, lips barely brushing his own as he grinned like a wolf and marked him like prey without so much as a kiss. No, he had the ring for that. “I await the day you become mine with bated breath, My Love.”

To Damian’s surprise, he found his whole body felt of needles and rushing blood, warm. He gave Cain a scowl.

* * *

She sat at the edge of a windowsill, a framed canvas through which the night starts painted between the metal edges and lines of glass. She knew the sun was probably rising where he was, knew that he was probably only moments away from rising for the day, while she was minutes away from retiring. She twirled her hair around one small finger, blonde curls latching and tangling as she messed with them. She wondered if he’d succeeded, if he’d done what she’d always known he’d wanted to do, the thing that he’d kept to himself for her, for years, years, years. She’d been selfish, but she’d keep his dream to herself not a moment longer. She rooted for him, truly, even if her heart tore itself apart with the uncertainty of it all. Her future had never been less certain.

There was a knock at her door, three polite conks. “Come in.”

“Pardon me, Miss. I know it is late, but a letter has arrived for you from the Young Master.”

“Give it here, I will send for him in the morning.”

The maid, a small, hunched woman in her late forties scuttered over and graciously handed her the enveloped, dotted at the center with a heart sticker, then turned courteous tail and left the room as soon as she’d entered. She smiled down at the envelope, well aware of what would be inside the note once she opened it. Good news. He’d have not written at all if it’d been bad news. She smiled, curled up and rested against the cool glass of her window, letter tucked between her chest and her folded limbs. With a sigh, she let the edges of the envelope cut her fingers, brushing them carelessly against the sharper borders. “I’m so happy for you… my dear brother.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeeaaah, just because of Cain, the rating for this story may be going up :X As it is, I've been tip-toeing the line between T and Mature, and I feel like, especially with some of Cain's actions in future chapters (and some of Jon's actions, if I'm being honest xD but those actions are undecided as of the moment), I'm gonna have to bump it up or risk trouble lol Would that be a problem for anyone? xD
> 
> I wanted to thank everyone who has been reading and commenting thus far, it really means the world to me! Imma be real a second and say that I just came from a different fandom, the MLB one, and it is decidedly not a place I think I'm staying much longer lmao and I haven't felt like I've really "belonged" to a fandom in awhile, but this fandom reminded me that not all fandoms are _like that_. I feel like I've found my next big hyperfixation. You guys have convinced me that I wanna stay here and create content for awhile, maybe even pursue the fantastical dream of maybe writing for DC someday! 😁 So thanks! I really, really appreciate all of the kind comments and support!


	7. Drinking Wine From Adam's Apple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I should warn y'all before you start reading that we've got some sensitive content this chapter. I told you guys it was gonna be bumped up to an M, and I wasn't lying. I'm marking this as "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings", so let that be your hint that it could be ANYTHING in that list. I don't want to tag spoilers and ruin mystery. What I can tell you is that we are NOT going with the "Talia lied to Bruce about a miscarriage" storyline for Damian's origin.
> 
> And, ya know, maybe some things aren't as they appear ;D I like to keep you guys on your toes (or try to), so keep an eye out for metaphors and symbolism, but this story holds a lot of red herrings. Basically, be careful reading this chapter, guys, I'd rather you not read if it will upset you!
> 
> ADULT CONTENT AHEAD, NOW: BE WARNED.

21 Days Before The Wedding

* * *

The flight to the United Kingdom was long, longer than he’d have liked. Commercial flights weren’t as fast as his father’s private jets or the planes they used for field work, but Cain had purchased first class tickets before Damian had so much as a say, and he was quickly beginning to suspect that it was an excuse to be as close as physically possible to him.

He glanced down at Cain’s arms, wrapped like a cobra around one of his own, squeezing and tugging whenever he moved in a way that Cain perceived as putting space between them. He sighed.

It seemed he’d gone through several packets of cookies and thirty glasses of juice before they’d landed, and the aisle they had all to themselves was covered in wrappers and empty cups by the time they stood to board off. He almost felt bad for the women in the tight dresses as they bent down to clear and clean; he’d consumed faster than they’d been able to contend with.

The Barnett Manor was large, long, stood like a rectangle at the center of a wooded clearing. Three floors high and built up in stone, the pathway leading to the manor was a paved dirt road, accented with the shade of the flowering trees that sat uniformly on either side, precedented only by the double-wide gates that parted as the petals fell and they crossed the threshold. It felt as though the grounds themselves were welcoming his fiance home. “What did you say your father did for a living?” Damian asked with his chin in his hand, watching the windblown leaves and petals of what appeared to be monkshood and tulips of bright red and yellow.

Cain glanced at him from the side. “Business, same as your own.”

Servants bowed and parted the doors for them as they carried up the leading steps. Cain offered him his arm. He declined with a scowl. Before them laid a wide split staircase, and beyond that an open ballroom floor. Servants lined the steps at either handrail, bowing as they entered the front door. A man in a tan suit, bordering on orange, stood at the center with a thin woman at his arm. Her green eyes were the same piercing shade as Cain’s, though her hair was, instead, a burnt red that curled in a single sweep, gathered at one shoulder. The man, Damian didn’t need to pause, was Aiden Barnett, and he was as tall and as well-kempt as he remembered him. His hair was just as sandy, eyebrows just as bushed, and he still felt like a caricature or an archetype, not a man, and not a family friend. A stranger is what he still felt like, a concept of a man he didn’t know, the way he’d thought of his father as a child before he’d met him. The woman in the peplum black dress smiled at him and grasped at her husband’s arm, leaning her head at his shoulder. “Damian Al Ghul. Welcome to our home.”

He concealed a flinch at the name.

Aiden began forward, leading his wife down the stairs as the servants surrounding cleared the way. “We’ve waited a long time to welcome you into our family, Damian. Your mother is a formidable woman, and, if I am to believe the letters we’ve exchanged, you are no less fierce.” Damian raised an eyebrow. Had his mother still been updating them despite his perceived betrayal?

“I am capable, if that is your concern.”

“No concern,” Aiden waved a dismissive hand. “My skepticism was merely for conversation. I do believe your mother’s word, and I am pleased to finally make your acquaintance after all these years.” His eyes were slim, hard to see beyond the furrow of his brow, but Damian got the distinct feeling he was looking him over. “You’ve grown. You were hardly at 4 feet the last I saw you. How tall are you, now?”

“6’0, Mister Barnett.” Taller than Drake and Grayson, same height as Todd, though it was possible he’d be taller by the time he was 24. It wasn’t his fault that Cain was a monster that sat an inch above him (or that Jon sat a good  _ three _ ). Something in the water, Superman had joked once.

Aiden nodded. “I haven’t met your father, but I recall mutual friends of ours speaking of his intimidating stature. I see now that his towering figure is likely responsible for such an impression.”

His wife offered a hand to shake, and Damian took it in firm grasp. “It will be nice to call you ours, Damian.”

He nodded, and wondered if he should have said the same. Cain smiled at him from the side.

A pair of green-painted doors parted at the side wall, and from beyond them a small girl appeared. Cain’s piercing eyes, the same blonde hair that sat in ringlets and brushed along her shoulders. Odder still was the victorian dress that circled in a stiff ring at her knees, a frilled skirt covered in lifted, top layer bunched and pinned by a single embroidered rose, as tea green as the rest of the fabric. She matched the walls of the manor, seemed as though she belonged nowhere else, was never meant to go anywhere else. She was a portrait hung at the wall, an ancestor that had not yet passed, a memory in the walls that his fiance called home. She met his eyes, and at once her cheeks sprung pink. “Damian Al Ghul.”

Again, that name. He kept his expression evenhanded. “I… assume you are Abele.” He kept his voice soft, because she reminded him of a rabbit at the brink of startle. She nodded once, and slowly made her way over to join the small welcome committee that her family had become. Her mary-janes tapped against the shining tile floor with each step, echoing in the empty halls. Cain glanced at him from the side.

“I am.” She took the edges of her stiff skirt and bent into a curtsy. “I am grateful you have come to visit. I have waited a very long time to see you, again.” She smiled at him, and it was small, shy, unsure of herself, he could tell by the slight tilt of her head. “I am inclined to think my brother has been good to you?”

Cain scoffed. “I have been the perfect gentleman!”

Damian remembered the dirty,  _ dirty  _ things written on the card he’d sent with the obnoxious amount of flowers, and the presumptuous pants  _ that had no ass _ . He scowled at Cain, but he kept his mouth shut.

“Wonderful!” Gertrude clapped her hands once in a fit of glee. “We will see to it the maids fetch you for supper. In the meantime, Abele, Cain, please show our new son around our home. Can’t have him feeling lost in the estate that will be his someday, hm?”

* * *

There it was, in perfect, camera-flash detail. Jon glared at the image that mocked him from his phone in blue light filtering. A boy, around his age, a mop of blonde hair, green eyes that made him queasy (and not in the way Iris did). Dressed the way he imagined a civilian  _ guessed _ the bat family probably dressed under the mask. Frilled shirt, buttoned vest, ruffled sleeves, as though he’d jumped straight out of a neo-victorian dystopia. Maybe it was who he was looking at, maybe it was the small box and the ring he tried so desperately to not pay any mind to, but there was something about that smile of his that seemed… ravenous, calculating, underhanded. He reminded him somewhat of Rex, and he couldn’t figure out why. That’s what he tried to focus on, when that picture hit the front page of every newspaper in America, broadcasted across every major news network. Not Damian, not the red of his cheeks (the kind he could still feel under the palms of his hands, a good memory, a memory that kinda hurt now), not the flustered wobble of his lips, so uncharacteristic of a boy he’d known his whole life, called his best friend. It wasn’t real, it didn’t feel real.

It made his stomach churn so uncomfortably that he thought, honestly, that he might throw up. He’d spent the first twenty minutes of his morning, hunched over the toilet in the bathroom, trying not to gag as his face twisted and his throat burned. He’d clutched to the toilet seat so hard that he was concerned the porcelain would shatter under his hands. His arms wrapped around his stomach as he bent forwards, trying not to focus on the nausea, tried not to think about the ring, and not about Damian, not about the fact that some guy he didn’t even know was holding his hand when Jon couldn’t even touch him anymore. Not that he wanted to, not in that way, but right then he needed Damian, so, so much. He wanted one of his reluctant hugs, wanted to hear him scoff and tell him he shouldn’t hold back if he was going to cry. He wouldn’t, not now.

(If he focused on Damian’s heartbeat right now, how fast would it be going? If he listened for Damian’s voice, what would he hear?)

He forced himself to stand, pushed his way past the door of his bathroom, then his bedroom, until eventually he found himself at the foot of his stairs. He plopped down at the dining table, sparing his mom a glance as she smiled at him and placed some eggs and bacon on his plate. “You look a little rough, Jon. Didn’t sleep well?” He grunted. His dad shot him a small, knowing smile, like he had suspicions Jon had been up doing something a teenager usually would. Probably thought that, if he looked at Jon’s phone, he’d find a message history a mile long and dirty as the typical human man’s search history. He’d have been wrong. All of Jon’s recent messages had gone unanswered. He couldn’t stand to look at Damian’s thread.

To his disdain, his dad unfolded the newspaper, and once again, that image hit him like a kryptonite-dusted fist to the stomach. Cain Barnett’s smiling face, Damian’s outstretched hand. He suppressed a gag. Clark blinked at the page. “Huh. I wouldn’t have thought Damian was…” Jon barely glanced up at him with heavy-lidded, black-bagged eyes. Clark blinked back at him. “... so shortsighted.” This again. His parents had tried to bring it up with him before, the moment his mom had found that invitation he’d left haphazardly at the kitchen counter. He didn’t want to look at it, didn’t want to talk about it, not before he’d spoken to Damian, and definitely not after. “What do you think Bruce has to say?” That question was clearly directed at anyone, but he could tell his dad was hoping for his answer. He offered none.

Lois leaned over Clark’s shoulder and added more freshly-cooked bacon to the plate at the center of the table, pressing a kiss to the space just above his ear, where his glasses sat. “He’s the one who sent out the invitations, Clark, he has to support it.”

Clark gave his loving wife a warm smile, but sighed down at the newspaper that now sat folded in front of him. “I’ll have a talk with him. I respect Bruce, and he must have a good reason for supporting this, but I have my doubts it’s what’s best for Damian.” (At this, they both shot a look to Jon, who didn’t seem to register they concerned eyes on him as he fiddled with the eggs and strips, twisting them with his fork until they less resembled food on a plate and were more reminiscent of a baby’s high-chair mess. Not a single egg had left the plate. They glanced at each other.) Clark shot his son a smile that didn’t really meet his troubled, curious eyes. “Why don’t you invite Iris over? Barry says she hasn’t stopped talking about you since--”

Jon didn’t even look up. “I don’t want to see her right now.”

Lois and Clark, for once in their lives, looked genuinely surprised, eyes wide and blinking at their groggy son as they registered the new information. To them, another clue. Clark put the smile back on his face the next moment, while Lois turned and busied herself with clearing the greased stovetop. “Is something wrong, Son?”

“Nothing, Dad.” It was the most he’d ever sounded like a normal, rebellious teenager, sick of  _ unnecessary _ parental guidance. His voice groaned under the pressure of use. “I just haven’t showered in, like, a week, and I haven’t really been sleeping. It’s gross. I don’t want her to see me like this.”

Clark and Lois exchanged a look as she scrubbed at the pans. It was his mom who went to cajole him next. “You know, Jon, even if Damian is making some… questionable decisions right now, he’s still your best friend. Believe me, I know it can be hard to let your friends make some stupid,  _ stupid _ choices--” She shot a badgering look his dad’s way, and Clark smirked into his coffee mug and pretended not to see, “-- but at the end of the day, being a friend is about trying to understand them, and supporting them even if everything blows up in their face. You can always say _ I told you so _ later.”

Jon dropped his fork and wordlessly stood, taking his plate to the sink without ever having touched a bite. He stood by Lois’s side at the unoccupied left-hand side of the sink, shoveling his uneaten breakfast into the garbage disposal with tired eyes and heavy hands. Clark’s smile was gone, as was any trace of playfulness on Lois’s face. (Jon had never been like this, so despondent, so leaden. The usual aura that followed their son everywhere he went, a sunshower and grassy knees, a boyish smile, it was buried in the descent of his shoulders, in the dullness of his eyes and the thinness of his lips.) Clark set his mug down. “Son, this feels like this is about a bit more than Damian’s fiance.”

“ _ Don’t call him that! _ ” The room fell silent as Jon’s cry echoed like Black Canary’s songs, bouncing off the sunny yellow wallpaper of their home, pelting them all with sound in the square center of their chest.

Lois and Clark stared at him, wide-eyed. Jon blinked and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “Sorry… if you need me, I’ll be outside.” He left through the back door of their kitchen, intent on clearing his mind with chores and the earthy smell of hay and grass.

(Lois and Clark glanced at each other, needing not to say a word, not to each other. Communication was easy like that, when you were in love.)

* * *

The Barnett Estate was roughly as large as Wayne Manor was, with brighter halls, whiter wall panels, less red accents and more pastel crevices. The reflective tile floor followed them wherever they went, from the ballroom that spanned a small field with french balcony doors to the piano room, a square escape with a shining black piano placed at the center of the room, parallel to the wall-length windows that spanned one edge to the other. There was a library, smaller and, unlike his own, regulated to the one room. The bookshelves filled every visible wall, and the novels and poetry collections squeezed every available space between those borders. There was only a window stories above at the ceiling, long after the bookcases ended, the curved glass of a penthouse.

From there Abele and Cain showed him their father’s office, the dining room, until eventually they stood before the guest room he’d call his home for the next week. It was spacious, like the piano room, a Lexmod Headboard above an ovid bed. Thin satin sheets of teal, flowing over the bed, each silky wave dripping like diamonds in the setting sun’s glow. A canopy sat over the headboard and fell at either side like parted curtains. Again, he found one wall of his room stripped of paint and made of glass, where he could see the gardens and over they reached for yards in his sight. Damian thought that he may find the moon a closer companion than usual, less obstructed by city lights, just a hand’s reach outside his window, if he pretended. This was his room for seven days, and yet he’d never felt less like he belonged to a room.

“If you get lonely,” Cain started, lips a whisper away from his ear, “you can always come sleep in my bed, My Love.” Damian glared at him, knowing the words were coming before they so much as hit his tongue, but he hadn’t expected Cain to reach down with a sly hand and pinch his derriere. A blush sprung to his cheeks.

“Keep your hands to yourself!” He slapped the offending fingers away, baring his teeth at Cain as he choked on his laughter and backed away.

(Abele blinked, watching them, observing ever-so quietly. Her small hands reached up to hold the threshold of the guest room door, head tilting as Cain dodged a flying fist from Damian’s dark-aura direction, his eyes burning with irritation. She smiled to herself, but she knew it wouldn’t reach her eyes.)

* * *

Gotham was always loud, even on the quiet nights, the nights his boys weren’t at his side. His lip curved downward into a snarl. He hadn’t wanted Damian to fly off to the UK, didn’t want his son all alone in what he considered to be enemy territory. Friends of Talia’s, right? They could never be good, he didn’t trust it. He’d loved her once and, though he’d walked away, she’d betrayed that trust, acted exactly like her father, drugged him, though he supposed that hadn’t all been bad. He’d have preferred they’d used protection, but nowadays, he considered the idea that he’d have never met Damian if that’d been the case.

He wanted to keep him safe, keep him from meeting the same fate, worried that his son was too lost in his own mind, as he had been of late, to see red flags, no matter how bright. But he’d yet to dig up anything useful. Aiden Barnett was a businessman, a connoisseur of wine who ran a large production company, owned apple orchards all over the world, nothing he could use-- not yet. There had to be a reason he’d found himself connected to Talia and Ras, because the typical winery owner wouldn’t find assassins in their bed, or purposely put an assassin in the bed of their children, either. He was missing something, something he wasn’t sure he was in the headspace to figure out. No, not when his youngest was getting married, not when he’d seen the pain in his eyes grow worse, and worse, and he worried for his sanity as well as his own. What could he say? What could he use to piece his son back together when he wasn’t sure what had broken him in the first place? A shattered vase grew in value when it was melded back together with gold and silver, a bracelet with a broken link only held more sentiment when passed down through generations. A broken heart? He’d been trying to find the right glue his whole life. He sighed.

“What are you doing in my city, Clark?”

The telltale sound of a fluttering cape wavered through the air as Superman landed by his side. Here, a hundred floors above the nightlife below, they could chat as friends-- that’s what he assumed Clark thought. Superman smiled at him. “I’m here to congratulate you! Assuming congratulations are in order.” There was a knowing twinkle in Clark’s eye, the kind typically reserved for when he was teasing him amidst Justice League company. But there was also a curiosity, the awaited answer to the real question he’d asked:  _ Is this wedding what it looks like? _

Batman stared down at the cars that passed by under Gotham streetlights, unaware they were under his protection, if only for the moment as they took the fastest route home. He said nothing, so Clark continued. “I have to say, this wedding seems a little out of left field.”

“That’s because it is.” He glanced over his shoulder, and Clark blinked. “Talia.”

Understanding coiled on Superman’s face with some restrained concern, his brows furrowing and eyes flickering with thought. “Of course. I should have known.”

He grew closer, stopping only when Superman and Batman were standing side-by-side, staring out into the playing ground of the wicked. He wondered if his son saw the city the way he did, if he felt stuck to the cesspool of Gotham, if he thought Batman was all that lay in his future, waiting for him in his father’s old age. He wanted to tell him that he’d give him so much more, that he wanted him to live a normal life, that he hoped for grandchildren, that he hoped Damian could someday think of his life with The League as a distant past. He wondered if that was why Damian was running, if he’d realized what he wanted, if he’d be the next Robin to walk away. But to walk back to his mother? “The question is why Damian is going along with it. He hasn’t been an Al Ghul for a long time.”

Superman raised an eyebrow. “Does he know that?” Batman grunted. Clark sighed and ran a hand through his hair and its single perfect curl. His wife would probably tease him when he got home for ruining his perfect image, but he imagined Clark was more than prepared for that. “Jon is torn up over it.”

That made sense. “He stopped by the manor last week, looking for Damian.”

“Must not have gone well. Jon has been brooding around the house all week. Apparently he hasn’t showered. Lois is about one missed dinner away from bathing him with the pigs.”

A man with less on his mind might have laughed-- a man with more of a sense of humor would have, too, if you asked his boys. Batman did not. “Dick is worried, says he thinks Tim was onto something.”

Clark gave that thought some pause, registering the recent case Red Robin had gone through, of which there’d been many. Nothing jumped out at him, if the confused scrunch of his nose was any indication. It was such a Jon mannerism that he almost snorted. Just as Damian was inarguably his son, he supposed the same was true of Jon and Clark Kent. “Onto… what, exactly?”

Batman stared at him, lips in a thin, telling line. “Jon may have played a bigger role in this than he’s letting on.” Superman stared back, face furrowing in concentration.

* * *

The dining room was filled with gold and wood, right down to the curtains that draped the windows and hung from gold rods. The plates they ate on were gold, and the candlesticks that lined the table in company of the chandelier that hung over their heads were gold. Damian glanced at Cain’s plate, beside him, and found it covered with the blood of the meat on his plate. The rest of the Barnett family took their steak the same way-- bloody, thick, like a sauce for taste instead of the driving force of the life that sat at the other end of their fork. They’d been unbothered, relatively, when he’d asked for a more vegetarian option, but he could still feel Aiden Barnett’s eyes watching him, calculating every swift move of his knife.

Gertrude Barnett was overly jovial, laughing all the time, swinging her glass full of a Barnett-brewed wine, licking up the drops of red that hit like tidal waves against the edge of her class with unrestrained glee, as though she’d forgotten she was in company. The bites she took of her steak never seemed big enough for her mouth, and the ravenous look in her eyes reminded him in the most uncomfortable way of Cain’s, when he was being particularly wanton. She kept sparing heated glances at her husband, who seemed unconcerned if not entirely adverse to the propositions she was making with those long eyelashes and the bobbing of her hand up and down the stem of her glass. Damian glanced at the red, red wine that seeped over the rim of the glass and dripped over the lengths of her slim fingers. He wondered if there was something else in her system, if perhaps her wine was having a negative reaction to a one medication or another.

Abele was more quiet, sitting at the other end of the table with a steak knife and a fork, cutting her food into small, digestible pieces before she gently placed them on her tongue. Cain ate in much the same way as his sister, but Damian watched him lick the blood off of his fork.

“I’m grateful, after all these years,” Aiden started, wiping at the juices and lapping them up with his napkin, “we will finally be marrying an Al Ghul into our family, after all.” Cain grinned while Abele giggled to herself, and Gertrude raised her glass the way one would raise to a toast. Her eyes met Damian’s, and the jovial smile on her face inched until it was an almost manic grin. She waved to one of the maids who stood waiting at the wall with a pail.

“Damian, Damian, come! Drink with your new mother!”

“Ah, no thank you, I’m afraid I don’t--”

“Drink.” She raised her glass in his direction, eyes thin with an evident lack of patience. There would be trouble if he declined, of what sort, he was unsure, but while he was unafraid, he wasn’t dumb. He said nothing and reached for his glass, holding it out to the maid as she poured him a cup. Cain watched him from the side, sipping at a glass of champagne, same as his father across the table.

Damian raised the glass to his lips and tilted it the slightest, pretending to take a sip as the wine hit his lips. The smell was odd, unlike the wines he’d tasted and scented in the privacy of his home, with his father or his brother, Grayson. Usually wines smelled of vinegar if they’d gone bad, or turned grape, maybe the ferment of the vineyard, but never… like apple. Apple and allspice, something off, something that threw him off as he snuffed out the unfamiliar smell. He wiped his lip with his napkin and set the glass back down.

“Oh!” Cain gasped, hands clapping together in excitement. He reached to Damian’s hand where it rested at the table and placed his own hand over. Damian held off the urge to tear his hand away. They were in front of his family, such a rejection of physical contact could seem unwilling or unsociable, “Dad already has our personal designer working on our tuxes! She’s the best in the business, My Love! You will not be disappointed!” He leaned over, despite the eyes of his parents on both of them, close enough that the hot breath at his ear made him shiver. “Of course, I’ll leave what’s under the suit to your discretion~”

Damian swatted at him.

“Mother, Father? May I be excused?” Abele patted at her lips with her napkin, eyes unfocused, hardly waiting for an answer. Damian got the distinct feeling she already knew what they’d say, like this was a dance she’d done a million times before.

“Yes, yes, of course, Abele.” Gertrude waved her daughter away, but she hadn’t needed to say a word. Abele was already standing, discarding her napkin at the table beside her empty plate.

For awhile after, what felt like hours to Damian, the family talked politics. The crown, parliament, even American politics. The economy, how their wine sales were doing, something about a man Aiden asked Cain to speak to in person before he left back to Gotham with Damian for the wedding. Cain had been eager, squeezing Damian’s hand, interlacing their fingers as he and his father chatted animatedly, the way Damian had always wanted to talk with his father. He found himself lost in the way Cain’s hand felt over his own. Cold, encompassing, large enough that he could hardly see his own hand anymore under the grasp of his fiance’s. How embarrassing, he thought, to hold hands so planely in front of his parents. Had he no shame? Well, he supposed he already had the answer to that. He wasn’t sure Cain was capable of feeling  _ shame _ , or  _ regret _ , or even  _ penitence _ . But didn’t he know that it was inappropriate to be so affectionate all the time? The public eye didn’t need to hear dirty words meant only for a lover’s ears, or see such blatant gooey-cheesy-fondling Cain tended to do when he knew damn well everyone in the room could see them.

But, on the other hand, it was nice. It was nice to not have to hide all the time, nice to not have to keep up appearances, to not have to lie to his family about his kiss-swollen lips. Jon hadn’t wanted anyone to know, always told him  _ not yet _ , and  _ I’m just kinda scared, D _ . Jon’s kisses had been relegated to sleepovers in his bedroom, alone in the dark with the computer playing whatever movie they wanted to waste time not paying attention to. Jon took his hand to help him fly, to catch him when he fell, when it was appropriate to as his friend. Jon took his hand in private shyly, unsure of himself, took to glancing at Damian a lot until he knew it was okay to sweep his fingers into his palm.

Cain wasn’t afraid to reach for him if he was in arm’s length, would never lower his voice when Damian told him to because he was so damn  _ happy _ that Damian was at his side. Damian. The disappointment. The demon spawn. The blood son, the son that Batman never asked for. Cain’s promises, though driven by lust, they were never empty. If Cain told him he wanted him, he’d think him an oversexed parasite-- but he wouldn’t disbelieve him. He wasn’t sure he could ever trust a man who said such sweet things again. Of course, to say he trusted Cain was a miraculous overstatement, but to say he had faith in his ignorant honesty would not have been. Despite himself, Damian squeezed his hand back.

“We should do a toast!” Gertrude raised her glass to the air again, and Aiden smiled at her as she did. He joined her, raising his glass of champagne.

“To the union of our families and the strength of our bloodline!”

Cain snickered and shook his head in playful discontent, raising his glass with the hand that wasn’t latching to Damian’s with a newfound force now that he found equal pressure pushing back. “To our union!”

Damian sighed and faked a smile, the Wayne smile, the one he’d perfected since he’d been thrown at his father’s footstep. “To our union.”

The Barnetts tipped their glasses back and took heaping gulps of their poison, while Damian raised the rim of his glass to his lips to fake a--

Cain let go of his hand to wrap an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in so suddenly that his lips parted in a gasp, and the wine flooded his throat and soaked down his lungs until he couldn’t inhale anymore, and Cain was pressing a sloppy kiss to his cheek. Cain finished the rest of his champagne in one go, while Damian choked and gasped for air, one arm covering his open, hacking mouth. Cain raised an eyebrow at him and rubbed circles into his back. That didn’t help.

No, whatever was in the wine, he was already starting to feel it. He’d known there was something odd about the wine, from the smell, and now the taste, now the odd way the room spun around him. Wine didn’t do that after a gulp on a full stomach.

“You there, pour him more wine.”

“N-No, no, I’m okay, thank you.” He didn’t want another sip, couldn’t quell the panic that was rising in his chest as he realized there was something horribly wrong, something he’d been foolish and hadn’t stopped.

“My Love, are you all right?” No, no he wasn’t. He was trying not to panic. He’d been taught to never panic, but god help him, it felt like he’d been slapped with Scarecrow’s neurotoxin.

“I j-just swa-allowed wrong.”

A mischievous glint lit his fiance’s eye. “My, my, you should get better at swallowing, then.” He swatted at Cain.

He forced his eyes open even though the world spun around him. He squinted across the table as he got the sudden feeling of flying while he still sat grounded, as his stomach lifted the way it did when he took a soaring leap from a Gotham skyscraper. Gertrude and Aiden were staring back at him, and he knew it was them, but for the love of everything good, they looked more like his father and Grayson. He was hallucinating, he knew it. There was something in that  _ wine _ \--!

“My Love, I think we should head to bed.”

* * *

His body couldn’t utter the word “no”, refused to let the word manifest in his mind and more so refused to let him say it. He found his limbs as useless as cut nerve endings, lost, burnt out. Cain had one of his arms around his shoulders, and was hauling him somewhere. He wasn’t sure. The walls were morphing and he couldn’t tell the difference between floor and ceiling, he wanted to go home.

Cain chuckled at him as he tried to form coherent words, syllables that came out like babbles, sentences that got lost on the way from mind to tongue. Eventually Cain was prodding open a door, an unfamiliar one. Damian took one look inside, found that he could tell by the blood red of the bed and its neighboring curtains, by the one window that filtered the moon through french white panels, that this was not the guest room. No, he knew where they were. He tried to pull away from Cain, use the door’s threshold to hoist himself back up to his feet, but he was falling forward into his chest and babbling about nothing when he really wanted to say  _ I want to go back to my room, take me to my room _ . Cain rested a hand at his lower back, and suddenly sparks of pleasure shot through his pine. No, no that didn’t make sense. His body shouldn’t have reacted with such sensitivity to such an insignificant touch. His lips parted but all that came out was a moan and a gasp for air he couldn’t seem to find. His legs fell out from under him, as though disconnected entirely from his body. Cain caught him as he fell in a limp pile at the ground, one hand at his lower back, the other cupping the back of his neck so gently that he was almost unsure it was there. His vision began to fade in and out, subverting and flashing until all he could see was Cain’s gentle smile and the delicate furrow of his brow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So 👀 what does everybody think? This is where things are really going to start kicking off, where shit begins hitting the fan, if you will lol This is also the chapter that made me pause and go "Ah... maybe this should be M-Rated", so now it is. Thanks, Cain. Thanks, Cain's Mom Gertrude. I'll leave what the ending implies to your discretion until the next chapter comes out ;D It'll clear things up.... a teeny bit, not enough, that'll come later.
> 
> (Constructive criticism is always welcome, but please try not to bite the author's head off! ≧◇≦)


	8. Blooming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is this chapter a tad horny on main? Perhaps. But I didn't think I was even going to get it done this week, and y'all have probably wanted something spicy since this fic started to begin with :P So, spicy you get. If I'm not careful, my ass is gonna be towing the line between M and E soon too >_> As of next chapter, we'll officially be halfway through! Y I K E S that was fast lmao
> 
> Please enjoy, review, and share with me your thoughts! ❤️o(≧o≦)o
> 
> (P.S❤️ if you guys missed it, I compiled a playlist over on my tumblr for this fic (′▽`〃) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYJ5-g1w2OrmCkGkt8hFESqHTghkD04Sm )

20 Days Before The Wedding

* * *

His eyes snapped open. The way they would after a nightmare, the kind of awake that came so suddenly with a frantic skip in his chest. He didn’t remember the rest of the night, didn’t remember anything but the smell of apple and allspice, the gentle upturn of Cain’s lips as he slipped into the madness of oblivion. The darkness of the room had given way to a new day. The dark red sheets he found himself tangled in helplessly appeared an exotic shade of red.

To his surprise, nothing hurt. Of course, by that he meant his head didn’t feel like it’d been split in two, his stomach was reaching up into his throat and burning every inch of his throat with sickening bile and acid-- but his body didn’t utter a complaint, either, not even as faint as a whisper. He found that his cotton turtleneck was at the floor by the headboard, and his belt was torn from his pants, but they were still buttoned and zipped. He turned his head, found the boy he’d been calling his fiance standing there with his back turned. He was slipping on a new shirt, readjusting the cuffs. Like everything was normal. How dare he carry no weight in his shoulders, damn him for getting the better of him, damn it all. Damian glared at him as the shirt stretched against his shoulders, ridges of fabric pulling as Cain fastened his buttons.

He wanted to throw up, wanted to kill this boy, throttle him by the neck, make it bloody, castrate him and fold his skin in horrible, awful tortuous ways, do things he hadn’t done to anybody since he’d become Robin-- things he’d sworn to never do again. But he wanted to cut that sickeningly sweet smile off of his lecherous face, make him beg for forgiveness the way he’d been begging for  _ this to not be happening _ the night before, and he never begged. It was his fault, he knew it was. He’d known there was something in his drink, knew there was no way to tell what would happen to him if it got into his system, but he’d been a fool and let his guard down anyway. He could hear his mother’s scolding voice and see her snarl, see his grandfather shaking his head, denouncing him as a competent heir, see his father hanging and shaking his head, apologizing for not being there when he knew what he’d want to say was that he’d trained him to be better than that.

Despite himself, he wanted to cry.

“What did you do to me?” He grunted as the words came out, forced himself to sit up. He was expecting his muscles to scream, to feel sudden bruises at his back, feel a sharp, unforgiving pain in a place that was typically so much firmer, but nothing felt different. There was no difficulty sitting, or bending, just a deep tiredness that stuck to his bones and made him sore, the kind that came when he slept on a limb wrong.

Cain hardly spared a glance at him over his shoulder, but did not look back at him. “Do not worry, My Love. Nothing happened.” The movement was cold, his tone was indifferent. Lacking the tenderness and the lust that his damned pet name typically carried, but there was also no sarcasm.

Damian felt his stomach churn. “You expect me to believe that?”

Cain paused, and for the first time since he’d known him, he turned his head over his shoulder, completely, and fixed him with a scowl. Like a wild dog, snarling, with his teeth on display, with his eyes glowing despite the darkness that resided within, with a nose that looked the opposite of his dainty, small, sweet nose. Damian didn’t fall back, wouldn’t let himself, but it was so off putting from him, so odd. Out of character. He was holding something back. Trying not to make a scathing remark? “I do not think myself an opportunist,  _ My Darling Fiance.” _ He scoffed, then turned on his heel and marched to the door, stopping only after he’d passed through and slammed it so hard that the room shook in his departure.

Damian shivered.

He pulled the covers out from over him, taking in the sheets, perfectly pristine, perfectly red, not a single odd stain to take as evidence. He even unbuttoned his pants, checked himself, and found nothing particularly incriminating. There was… moisture, but it was minimal, the kind that told him he’d been at the verge of a ledge he’d never quite leaped from. It’d happened once or twice with Jon, or with thoughts of Jon, back when kissing was new and just the feeling of Jon’s hand grabbing his waist made him lose control over that part of himself. If Cain had taken advantage of him (with that wine in his system that made the smallest touch feel like a poisoned vein of desire, seeping into his bones, touching him, lighting him up in ways he never had been before), then there would have been, well, more. More of a mess, more bruising, more pain, less spruce and more wrinkles.

Cain… was likely telling the truth. Nothing had happened. He found himself folding forward, a sigh draining out of his lips with such a tremble that his back shivered with the effort. He was untouched, unsullied, spared the same fate that had befallen his father, the same fate that had created him. He used to think he was a gift to his father, that even if the circumstances through which he’d been conceived had been a special kind of torture, his life made up for that one bad night. Now, for a long time, he was sure it was the opposite. Batman didn’t stay with his mother because he saw Ras Al Ghul every time he looked at her. What did he see in Damian? Ras? His mother? The drink he’d had that night? Had Cain been a woman, the very same thing might have happened, and he wasn’t sure how he’d have felt about a child conceived from his foolish mistake.

Cain. He’d assumed the worst.  _ Of course he had _ , a part of his brain screamed! That wine was tainted, everyone at the table knew it, and then he’d carted him off to bed with a smile. Put that together with the countless innuendos hidden in puns and unwanted touching and the absolute lack of regard for public spaces, it was the logical leap to make. But, then again, his mother had been drinking from the same pale, seemed just as out of it, with unfocused eyes and jerking movements, which meant whatever was in that cup of his was a regular nectar in the mouths of the Barnetts. Was probably illegal too, but incapacitating him had probably not been the goal.

Of course Cain had carted him off just to, he grimaced,  _ cuddle _ with him. Of course he got upset when Damian accused him of taking advantage. He’d proclaimed time and time again that he’d loved him, that he’d give him the world if he could, but he’d batted every word away in a desperate, childish fit. He hadn’t believed a word, not one word, couldn’t if he’d tried. Jon had said he’d wanted him once, then took it back the moment he found Iris’s legs around his neck, like a damn collar that had been tugging him away, pulling him away, leading him off the bridge Damian had been so sure they’d cross together. Jon was good, honest, a saint born of true love compared to the bastard born of deception and tainted passion. If he could go back on his words, what was stopping somebody like Cain? Somebody who hardly knew him, who took the opportunity to hit on him and touch as much of his skin as possible at any chance he got? Boys like that made promises they never intended to keep in the first place. But what if he had?

What if Cain had meant every word? What if Cain’s persistence came, not from political alliance, but from a determined, undaunted heart? Did Cain… love him? Could he trust that? Was he a fool for wanting to?

_ “I’ll just make you fall in love with me.” _

_ “This is where we’re going to have our first dance as newlyweds. You and I, surrounded by your new pride. Isn’t that exciting?” _

_ “I need you to know, whatever you want, it’s yours. My soul, my body , you can do with me, use me as you please. I will never complain.” _

He winced. His arms tightened around his bent legs, blankets of what now looked like a cheery red flashing back at him in the morning sun’s light. He shut his eyes.

* * *

He wasn’t sure what was wrong with him. A good comedy was on, he had Steph under his arm, it was a Saturday, and he’d closed his latest case just twenty hours earlier. He should have been riding a wave of serotonin right into Monday afternoon, but he couldn’t turn his brain off. It kept running back to the Demon Spawn, to his snotty little fiance, to the weirdness surrounding them. There was a case there, and he knew it, and he was trying so  _ hard _ not to stick his nose in Damian’s business because he just knew he’d catch hell for it when word got around, but he couldn’t. Stop. Thinking about it.

Steph glanced up at him from where she was laid at his side, big blue eyes blinking up at him under pretty eyelashes as she noticed him, well, not relax. He tried to smile at her. Her eyes said  _ you serious _ ? “Okay, that’s it. I haven’t seen you like this since Conner got you stuck on the riddle he made up with no answer. You’ve gotta spill, babe. What’s on that obnoxiously huge mind of yours?” She graced his temple with her finger and he laughed and smacked them away.

“Nothing, really! Just…” He paused, pursing his lips in thought. “Something isn’t sitting right with me about the Barnetts.”

Steph sat up and propped her chin up by resting her elbow over the back of the couch. “Oh, you mean the fact that they’re filthy rich and yet no media here or in the US has coverage of them?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Find anything yet?”

She shrugged. “Not yet. Guessing you haven’t either?”

“Ugh, no. Nothing beyond, like, attending fashion shows or, apparently, funding cancer research. Demon Spawn was right, they’re as clean as they come.” Unless, of course, they were just really good at hiding it. Clearly, that was the case. He knew it, Steph knew, Bruce probably knew it, he wouldn’t have been surprised if Alfred knew it. There was a chance that they’d let those media-happy walls down once Damian got inside, let him see the ugly corrupt part of being a family of eccentric billionaires. He was sure, if that was the case, Damian would pick up on it. As annoying as the brat could be, even in his later years, he was capable, and smart, and could see a facade for what it was a hundred miles away, better than any of them could. Each brother, each Robin, had their own thing, the thing that set them apart from the other robins, and his was his uncanny ability to see right through bullshit. He wasn’t good at handling people, like Dick was, but he  _ knew people _ . He understood them, and if there was something as up uncanny valley as he was expecting, then he knew Damian would see it.

“Oh no,” Steph ran a hand down her face, looking beyond her spread fingers with exasperated eyes, but he could see the humor in the quirk of her lips. “You have that look again, Tim-Tim. You don’t really think the Baby Bat would tell you of all people if something  _ was  _ horribly, inconceivably wrong with his in-laws, do you?”

“Well,” He gave her a sheepish grin. “He’s my little brother, Steph. Even if he doesn’t wanna tell me, I’ll figure it out.”

She smiled at him. God, he loved that smile. She had dimples, and the apples of her cheeks bloomed such a sweet shade of redpink that it made his stomach do flips. Not matter how long he was with her, no matter how many times she kissed him breathless or knocked him out (be that with her amazing flexibility or a brick to the face) she still gave him butterflies. Gross. She grabbed him by the collar of his greenblue sweater and pulled him into another breathtaking kiss.

Damn the TV, the couch just became a case he was planning on pulling an all-nighter to close.

* * *

The night was always gorgeous, even if the rest of Gotham was dirty, corrupt, full of crime, the city lights from way up high always made the smell of smoke and gasoline worth it. Jon glanced to his side. Well, it was one of the things that made the rest worth it.

Damian sat beside him, a small, content smile on his face. He thought he was one of the few people in Damian’s life that could get him smiling like that, get him to let his guard down enough that his shoulders were relaxed and his hands were splayed out on either side, his left hand so, so close to his own. The tips of their fingers brushed. Damian knew, and Jon knew he knew, that nothing could get them up there, not with Jon by his side-- and he always would be. Jon looked away and prayed the blush wasn’t obvious.

“Hey, D?”

“Yeah?”

Jon used his other hand to pull at the collar of his uniform. He knew he shouldn’t have been so nervous, that Damian was his best friend. These feelings, they could be nothing, but he wouldn’t know unless he tried. He didn’t think they were, didn’t think the sweaty palms or the startled way his heart beat whenever Damian was touching him was nothing, but maybe he was just incredibly fond? He loved Damian as a friend, he knew that much, knew he’d tear the world apart if something ever happened to him, but did he want him? His fingers tapped cautiously, playfully, until they were over top of Damian’s. Damian didn’t flinch, didn’t react at all, but Jon could hear his heart beat to the same tune his was. “I think I really like you.”

“You think?” The biting edge of Damian’s usual teasing voice was gone, replaced instead with a subtle, unusual fluster.

“Well,” Jon scooched closer, suddenly feeling every bit the Boy of Steel. He eyed Damian from the side, tried to catch the eyes under that domino mask of his. Damian swallowed, and it was miniscule, but Jon could see it, hear it, and turned to him. He was glaring, like he was warning him, but there was no bite, not when he could feel and hear the excited pulse of his heart. “I know I want you.”

He leaned forward and caught Damian’s lips on his own, finding that he was not only allowing it, but meeting him halfway. Damian was leaning into him, finding leverage in his hand at his shoulder, and Jon opened his lips, pressed his tongue at Damian’s and prayed he was doing this right. It was slow, innocent, and he was scared, so, so scared, but he didn’t know why. This was Damian, his best friend, the other half of him. Nobody else would sooner die than hurt him, and it should have been a comforting thought, but it hurt instead. So he bit at Damian’s lip with no question, just demand. Damian let him, and suddenly things were so much more intimate. His hand was at Damian’s shoulder, but then it was at the back of his neck, wrapping around the back to cradle his head as he pressed closer. And Damian’s hands were in his hair, and the  _ sounds _ Damian was making, they spurred him on. Small, favoring gasps, moaning as Jon’s hand found his hip. He knew, this wasn’t how things went, somewhere, in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t stop. He wanted so much more, and he couldn’t say it, couldn’t admit it even to himself, so he acted on it instead. His tongue brushed against Damian’s as he clenched down at Damian’s hip with his hand and pulled their priviest parts flush, and Damian’s breathing stuttered. “Jo~on…”

“Damian…”

Right there, at the height of one of Gotham’s skyscrapers, he pressed the hand at Damian’s shoulder until he was leaning back, back until Damian was flat at the cement and Jon was perched on top of him, one hand at the highest bend of his leg, thumb rubbing circles at the v of Damian’s bone, the other holding him haunched on his elbow. He could see Damian that way, and he looked so good below him, face red, mouth open and panting and wanting, and he found that he wanted so, so bad to take that mask off and see the glazed green he imagined he would find. He rolled his hips, and Damian was gasping and tilting his head back, eyes shut as he clutched blindly at Jon’s arms. His nails gripped and twisted and pulled desperately at his uniform as he choked on his own pleasure. He wondered, right then, if there was any better sound in the world. His twisting face, his unspoken name at parted, thirsting lips, everything made him clench his fist with the effort of holding back. “Oh, Damian.” He caught his lips again before he could say a word, rolled his hips again, and again, until Damian was crying into his mouth, bucking up, begging with his throat to cross the line, the line Jon knew was wrong, the line that had never been crossed, the line he’d never been sure enough to cross. He used the hand at Damian’s hip to lift him off the ground, hit him from another angle, and Damian broke their kiss to throw his head back and  _ cry _ .

“Jon!”

“Oh, Damian, you feel…” His breath stumbled on the way by his lips. He hung his head and breathed in time with every rock of their hips. “Damian, I want you. I want you so bad.”

“Jon.” His eyes shot open, and he didn’t even realize they’d been closed. Below him, Damian was looking up at him with those flushed cheeks and those kiss-swollen lips, trying his best to muster up his bat glare when he looked to be little more than putty under the steady rocking of their hips, the aching throb that was building, and building. “I’m yours. If you want me, then  _ take me _ .”

“I-I  _ can’t _ !” Why, why not? He glanced up and found something glittering at Damian’s ring finger. But Damian didn’t wear jewelry, and Robin sure didn’t. That was cumbrous and a distraction, he knew he’d heard Damian say it a hundred times. And yet, there was a square diamond, blue, the same color as his eyes, he knew, sitting so snug on his finger that he felt nearly compelled to tear it off. Guilt, anger, pain, nothing Damian had ever made him feel before, nothing like this. What were they doing? What was he doing? He had a girlfriend and Damian was--  _ was! _ \--

Jon shot up in bed, gasping, eyes wide in the rising sun of Hamilton. Far from the streets of Gotham, far from that rooftop so long ago. Farther than he’d ever been away from Damian. He grimaced, reaching up to run a hand through his already bed-messed hair. No doubt he’d find a surprise if he dared pull the covers off right then, so he wouldn’t. Because that dream shouldn’t have happened, because he’d made his choice, and Damian had made his, and  _ god _ if Iris ever heard he’d fantasized--  _ had a dream _ \-- about knocking boots with somebody she didn’t even know was (technically) his  _ ex _ , he knew he’d have to go live under a rock somewhere and die the Boy of Mineral and Erosion. He went to move his other hand, the one that was so limp over the side of the bed (the one that’d stroked the faintest edge of the innermost corner of Damian’s hip in his dream), and hear the faint sound of a paper crinkling. He pulled the hand back, and found it clutching helplessly to a familiar essay,  _ My Best Friend _ . Even now, the words were so familiar, held so near to his heart and so true that he didn’t need to look at the paper to see every Times New Roman letter, that he knew every word so well it would be less reciting essays and more monologuing. Contemplating.

_ Truth is, we got along right away. Mostly. _

_ In the movies you always see these kids grow up together and share every experience together… _

_ I call him my study buddy. He loves it. _

_ No matter what, when the chips are down, he always has my back. And he always takes care of me. I know I can trust him no matter what trouble we find ourselves in. _

He winced, rubbing at the bridge between his eyes. Yeah, he should have known digging up that old thing would send him down memory lane. A suddenly X-rated memory lane, apparently, despite the original memories being innocent and not at all… whatever that was. He was just feeling a little tense, hadn’t seen Iris in a long time, had a new world opened to him now that he’d finally taken a bite of the cherry. Damian was on his mind, he wanted Iris, but he’d used to kiss Damian, who was getting married, who wasn’t his friend anymore, who hated him now because he’d messed up. That was all. He pulled his legs up to his chest and laid his forehead at his knees, willing away the yearning in his chest. So stupid. He’d forget the dream by the time he was done with his chores.

He was tempted to throw the old A+ essay away, but instead, he took the packet in gentle hands, opening the drawer of his desk where he set them gingerly upon the empty wood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: that whole drugged scene with Cain? Was supposed to be the beginning of this chapter, not the ending of last chapter. Jon didn't originally have a part in this chapter, either, but with the direction I'm working in, I need him in the spotlight more often, and with that drugged scene moved to chapter 7, I needed to extend this chapter anyway lol. Have our thoughts of Cain changed again? How is everyone feeling about the "messy gay" :P
> 
> If I don't manage to get another chapter done this week-- I'm sorry! I'm working a 40 hour week in preparation of the school year starting, and my company needs all the extra hands it can get! ≧◇≦ Next week may not be any better, but we'll see! ^_^


	9. Laertes and The Golden Apple

11 Years Before The Wedding

* * *

She took a deep breath in, then held for a moment, wriggled her nose and let it all out. It was the lady’s way to do things, to control oneself, and she would be a lady, she was a lady, had to act the part. Especially right then. Right then, it was absolutely imperative that she appear as much the embodiment of femininity as her mother. That was what drew men in, that was what stole hearts and conquered lands and started wars, the perfect woman. That’s what she had to be. She scolded herself, untying her fists from her dress and using her thin fingers to smooth out the wrinkles she’d caused. She could feel her father’s eyes on her back, expecting so many miles ahead of what she could see, preparation for admonishment.

Cain set a warm hand over her own, to still her, and she relaxed. He was smiling at her, small, comforting, the way his fists felt in the guts of the schoolyard bullies in the past. An ever-protective guardian, a man who would one day pass her on to another, her dearest companion and oldest friend, even when he didn’t want to be.  _ Focus on your breathing _ , he said in his playful eyes.  _ Be a lady now and a swooning maiden later _ . She nodded, to him or to herself, and breathed out.

“Aiden Barnett.”

She heard the door creek open, the clambering of heels as her father rose from his seat. “Talia Al Ghul.”

“Pleasure to see you again.”

“The pleasure,” there was a meaningful pause, and as she turned, she caught her father eyeing The Demon Heiress she so little knew from toe to eye, “... is all mine.”

Talia smiled at him with a wise glint in her batting eye.

But that wasn’t what had her attention. Standing, to her delight, a few inches taller than her, was a boy with tan skin the very color of an arabian night, with eyes just as cold as the passing desert winds, raven hair that made the breathtaking green of his eyes all the more awe-inspiring. She swore they shined greener than any emerald she’d held in the palm of her hand, of which she’d been gifted many. Darker than any merelani mint garnet, clearer than any bloodstone, but capturing her heart and her eyes the same as a crown-encrusted demantoid or jade jewel. He was so pretty for a boy, but the cut of his jaw left little contemplation, as did the broadness of his shoulders and the way he held himself, hands folded behind his back, clad in a suit of black and white. Same as she’d seen him only months ago, but he stole the weight from her body and the air from her tongue the same as he had the first time. He appeared untouched by company, devastatingly neutral and so, so very far away even though he was just a moment’s touch before her. His eye caught hers, and she reminded herself to speak. “Hello, Damian.”

He stared at her and raised an eyebrow. “And you are?”

“Mind yourself, Damian,” Talia scolded him. “She is the daughter of our ally.”

She pinched her skirt between her fingers and curtsied. “My name is Abele,” she said, “it is so nice to meet you.” He said nothing, did nothing, stared only at her until the next moment, when Cain offered a hand and a pleasant smile.

“And I am Cain. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Damian glanced down at his hand, nose wrinkling. Her dear brother, never one to trip, regained his hand, using his other to nudge her with his elbow and a cheeky smile. She startled. “Ah! We saw you training the last time we visited! Your footwork was marvelous, I was… hoping I could see you in action, again?”

That seemed to wipe the inattention off of his face. Damian turned to his mother with the faintest hint of excitement in those jeweled eyes of his. “Mother, may I?”

Talia smiled at him, and she guessed that was the pride of a mother, unfamiliar as it was. “Please, Damian. Show them how you’ve grown.”

She saw her father’s eyes light up as Talia called for her men, and Damian stripped the nearest wall of a sword she supposed was more than decor. He shifted it from its seal, raised it and swung it around, playing tricks with the hilt between his fingers as it sliced through the air with an audible hiss. The men in all black, with faces she couldn’t see, bodies she’d never recall, crouched into fighting stance, and Damian seemed unbothered by that, didn’t so much as blink or bend his knees. Talia raised her hand as her father took three steps back, then brought it down the way a guillotine dropped, and the heads would surely follow.

Damian moved forward, and blood splattered across the floor. Bright red against tan tile, painting it, glistening over in a puddle that reached like the bony hand of death across the way, reaching and growing until it met the tip of her toe.

There was another scream, and more blood-- across her dress, across her face. Her eyes flew wide and she could taste copper, metal, wet on her tongue between her opened lips. Her hands trembled at her sides, and she raised one tremoring hand slowly, upwards, willing her body to stop the bout of endless shaking that had so suddenly overcome her. She had to remind herself,  _ be a lady, be a lady, be the sugar and spice and the warm cotton on his arm, be the lavender to calm his muscles so he can rise the next day to rip at the throats of his enemies, be a lady _ . Her fingers shook and felt frigid and hot as they smeared the gorish wetness at her eye.

Her fingers were red, so red, and he’d done that--  _ Damian had done that _ . In one second, he’d used that sword to draw the life and blood and soul of a trained man, then another, and he’d done it all so effortlessly, so unfazed, and the way he was moving then, if she glanced-- light on his feet, a thimble lost in a sea of cannons that couldn’t fire fast enough or accurately enough to hit him. His face was drawn, wrecked with concentration but unbothered by the way the man at the other end of his sword choked on the blood spilling from his fissured throat, screaming, clawing, and she might have watched as that man fell to the ground in the blood of his brothers, but Damian was onto the next, and that blood was still on her face.

Her heart was  _ pounding _ . Her lips quirked upwards in silent delight. “A true knight…”

Her brother turned to her and smiled, brushing a drop of blood from his cheek with his thumb, and in his eyes she could see that he was grieving something she could not grieve beside him. “For a true princess.” She smiled back at him with cheeks that could never be as red as the blood on her face.

* * *

19 Days Before The Wedding

* * *

Horseback riding. To say he’d never done it before would have been a lie, but to say he was well-versed would have been just as, if not more, factually incorrect. Abele seemed more than competent, riding her horse with her legs to the side, catching the summer breeze in her hair with her upturned chin. She appeared a preening animal in the sun. Cain glanced at him from the side as he tightened the saddle at his horse’s back. It was as white as a horse came, with a beach yellow mane that was groomed so finely that he swore the poor thing must have had hairdressers and guards. It had no name though, Cain had informed him, so Damian had taken to calling it  _ Aphrodite _ . “You seem nervous.”

“I’m not nervous.”

He could hear a woman giggle, and he turned to the raised patio deck where Aiden and Gertrude sat, her with a fan over her chattering lips and him with the rim of a teacup at his. She’d been laughing not at him, but at something her husband said, clearly, but it still ticked him nevertheless. His eye twitched.

Cain chuckled and shook his head. “You know, you could just ride in my lap, My Love. It would save us time.” Damian said nothing, but as Cain climbed upon Aphrodite’s back, he approached the side. Cain settled in before he blinked down at him, tilting his head to the side in confusion. He could see the metaphorical ears flattening and raising at the top of his golden head. Damian glared up at him and offered no other explanation but raising his hand expectantly. Cain blinked down at it, then back down at Damian, who turned his head away to hide the searing red that was starting to form on his cheeks. The gears turned in Cain’s head until his eyes lit in understanding, lips coiling in absolute glee. Damian scoffed to himself.  _ Idiot _ . He took his hand and pulled Damian up to Aphrodite’s back, and Damian threw his leg over one side and allowed himself to sink back into Cain’s embrace. It was closer than they’d ever been, or closer than he remembered them ever being, and the thought sent an almost excited chill through his spine as his hips brushed squarely against Cain’s.  _ Don’t pay attention to it, don’t pay attention to it _ …

Cain reached around him and gripped the reins, setting his chin at Damian’s shoulder as he purred in his ear. “How does my lap feel, My Love?”

He hissed back. “You won’t have a lap if you keep this up.”

Cain threw his head back and laughed, then raised the reins until Aphrodite began trotting along the vast fields of the Barnett Estate.

* * *

The flowers in bloom riding up to the manor were insignificant compared to what he was seeing, now. Tulips, the same bright red, yellow, petals loose and amist in the wind as it blew by on their saddled ride. The sun was high in the sky, surrounded by clouds heavenly white and full, circling the miles ahead of them. As far as he could see, green grass, long but kempt, trees billowing in sweet, hot winds, petals dancing, and they were at the center of it all. So perfect, so undeniably ethereal, he couldn’t find it in himself to see anything but the beauty. Cain took the reins in one hand and wrapped the other around his waist. He could feel warm lips at the shell of his ear, and he almost leaned into it-- nobody could prove that he had. “Hold tight, My Love!”

He slapped the reins down, and Aphrodite broke into a full sprint, and he bobbed along so wildly that he had to steady himself with one hand at the saddle and the other at Cain’s wrist, snug around him. He couldn’t help it, because of the easy summer day, because of the red tulip petals that swept around them in a whirlwind as they passed, because of the jostle of Aphrodite’s body as she rushed into nothing but open fields, Damian laughed. His head leaned back, against Cain’s shoulder, and Cain leaned forward with a toothy grin on his face, like a jockey in a gambled race. “Hee-yah!” He squeezed at Damian’s waist, his thumb rubbing a playful, soothing line into his skin.

They rode free and wild like that for a mile, then Aphrodite began to tire, and she dropped to a slower trot once more. Cain relaxed his grip, but the warm arm around him was still very much there, and for once, Damian didn’t feel the urge to remove it. Instead he leaned back into Cain’s chest and watched the streams and trees pass by as they galloped through the open woods. Cain said little, for once, mayhaps lulled by the same atmosphere he could feel in the company of the running water and the harmony of chirping birds. He glanced up to find some robins chatting animatedly despite the distance between the trees they’d perched upon, beaks unlatching as they sang and stomped around, red and black feathers and white-rimmed eyes standing out among the green leaves of the aider trees. There was no echo, but they heard each other just fine, no need to scream, no dead air, just chirping and skipping from one side of the branch to the other. He smiled to himself, wondered what his brothers were doing. Cain glanced up to see what he was smiling at, and then he smiled too.

“I’ve missed this.”

“Your home?”

“Yes,” Cain shifted his weight to better balance himself on Aphrodite’s back. “I quite prefer the danger of Gotham, but the sounds and smells of my family grounds, well…”

“Nostalgic.” He nodded. He understood. He too, preferred Gotham, but there were certain things that made him long for the long-gone familiarity with the incense of his mother’s room, the way the nights were cool against his battle-torn skin, things Gotham could not give to him. He wondered if, someday, there would be things that London could not give to him that Gotham could, if one day, he’d call the Barnett Estate his home. He’d miss the city lights, the memories, the first he’d been allowed-- and expected-- to treasure, the taste of Alfred’s meals and the quiet of the library. But, he thought, he’d gain the love of the Barnetts, a new mother, a new father, even a sister, and he’d have a husband who sought to love him despite the walls he’d been forcing between them every step of the way. Maybe there would be less pain, maybe he could steer his in-laws away from business with his mother, so long as they had him at their side, and maybe he’d find a proper sibling in Abele, and he’d know, for once, what it was like to feel  _ accepted _ ,  _ close _ , like he didn’t have to prove himself every damn step of the way, like he could be turned away, left alone at any moment. They knew of him, knew what he’d done, maybe had hands just as bloody, and they’d already accepted him-- Cain had already accepted him. Maybe, he’d come to feel London was home.

“Ameli,” He turned his head over his shoulder, and Cain turned so that their noses were brushing. Close enough to kiss, a voice in the back of Damian’s mind whispered, a voice that sounded almost like he wanted to. Cain hummed, and Damian hesitated for a moment, “... could we come here, after we’re married? Back to London?” Cain’s brows furrowed in confusion.

“You would want that?”

“Yes, I would.”

“Your family?”

“You said you’d be my family, now.” Cain watched him for a moment, parakeet eyes darker as they passed through the shade of a towering pine tree. His eyes, fleeting for a moment down to his lips, the back to his face. Damian’s parted as they looked at each other. Cain licked his lips.

“If that’s what you want, it’s yours.”

“So you’ve said.”

Cain exhaled a laugh and his lips twitched into a smile. “Feeling cheeky, are we?”

Damian turned to face forward, a small smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. “Must learn to keep up with you.”

“Won’t be hard, just ask and I’ll slow down.”

“Don’t you dare.”

He laughed to himself, and Cain raised the reins to gear Aphrodite back to the manor.

* * *

It was on the trot home that the rain started to pour. Heavy, unrelenting. Cain stripped himself of his jacket and Damian held it over their heads as they picked up pace and hurried back to shelter. London summers were notorious for their heavy downpours and sun showers, and indeed it was the former. The white round bands like brushed portraits in the sky turned to darker, foreboding handfuls of grey that shrouded the sun and the blue that had been.

Cain’s mother and father had returned to the safety and warmth of the Barnett’s Estate’s roofs and blankets, but a dozen maids and butlers stood in the cold rain like a flock of squawking ducks, eyes wide, glancing around, like they had something to search for in an nonexistent crowd. In the rain. His eyes narrowed. Signs of panic, in all of them. Tense shoulders, hushed whispers, wrung hands in towels that had long since soaked through to the red and raw hands beneath. Cain steered Aphrodite into the stall, but Damian tapped him twice on the thigh while there was still space to hop off. Cain halted, though confused, and Damian nodded to get Aphrodite in her pen. Cain cocked an eyebrow, but did as asked (gestured), and Damian turned on his heel and made his way to the servants. The flock startled as he approached.

“What is the meaning of this? Have you all nothing better to do for your wage?”

“Master Damian!” One maid, an average woman, hair in a sopping wet bun, loose strands sticking uncomfortably to her face, grasped at his arms then thought better of it. She snatched them away like she’d been burned. “Lady Abele hasn’t returned! We cannot find her!” He glanced up at the stalls, and sure enough, the horse with the green saddle was indeed missing from its pen, and it appeared Cain had realized this, as well. His eyes grew wide with the same adrenaline coursing through the trembling, shaking hands of every servant, and he was on his feet and out of the pen, charging towards the flock the moment it hit him.

“Abele! Which direction did she go?”

A servant should have told him that they’d find her on their own, would have told the master not to worry, would have told him that they had things under control no matter how far from the truth that really was, but these maids and butlers seemed to have been waiting for him. They did not relax, but they grew hopeful, and the maid who had reached for Damian pointed frantically at the woods. “There, Young Master! Where Master Barnett forbade!”

Cain nodded, and turned on his heel at the direction of the woods. He didn’t need to ask, Damian was right behind him. The direction Aiden forbade was a trail pathed only from travel, a dirt trail turned to mud in the downpour, that circle and coiled around the trees like a snake, leaving just enough room for a horse and its girl. He could see why a girl like Abele would like it. From what he’d gathered of her in his few days at the manor, Abele was a girl who loved the pretty things, who subscribed and slaved to beauty and nature, apparent in the crocheted flowers she wore on her elaborate dresses, in the perfect ringlets she wore in her hair. The path she favored was strewn in flowers of all colors, and carried along a river he imagined was crystal blue in the sunlight that now hid behind storm clouds. But it was a strong stream, coursed more like a brimming river, dangerous in times of overflow, in times of London’s frequent rains.

“I’ll go right, you go left.” Damian gestured vaguely, but Cain was hardly listening. He took the direction and hurried, and Damian took the opposite.

The wet ground and branching trees made it hard to navigate, but he had to keep going. Abele, she was going to be his sister, his chance to prove he could be a brother, a good brother, that it was possible to love and be loved by somebody with his same name, by his married blood. She was a part of the future he wasn’t willing to let go of yet, a future he’d just begun to paint for himself, to accept, just begun to  _ want _ , truly. He’d done this a million times before, saved a million lives in a million climates as Robin, and taken twice as many as the Demon Heir. He could save her, had to save her, or the skill would be for not. He’d never forgive himself. Cain would never forgive him, he’d lose the only people who had ever wanted him despite the blood on his hands,  _ who could save him from being an Al Ghul the rest of his life--! _

He saw her. Alive, crying, soaked in her big heavy dress, with her ankle stuck in a fallen tree trunk, and the water level was getting higher. Her perfect ringlets were only murky, mud-covered strands that stuck like the grime to her cheeks, no longer round and bouncy but dead and limp, unlike her, unlike Abele, who was still struggling, tugging desperately at her leg as the water threatened to swallow her whole. “I’ve got you,” he reached out, and she looked at him with wide eyes and whimpered. “I’ve got you!” He bent down and tried to pull her limb free himself, but it was jammed, and the efforts to pull made her cry out in pain, from the burns his hands left on her skin or the tension in her bone, he wasn’t sure. Best not to find out. Thunder roared above, and he grimaced as the waves grew stronger, as they hit the trunk and crashed against his face as he shielded her. “Just hold on!”

Her ankle was swollen, that was exactly why she couldn’t get it unstuck, too large. It was no use tugging, he had to get her out another way.  _ Another way, another way _ … The swelling, if he could get the swelling down, he could pull her to safety. He spared her crying face a glance and gave her his best Bat-Everything-Will-Be-Fine stare (the kind he’d seen Grayson give civilians, the kind he’d seen his father give children who weren’t him, never him). “I’m sorry.” He reached into his pants and secured a small dirk, and she screamed and pulled at the hand in which he held the blade, begging.

“No, no, please! I can’t lose my--!”

“You won’t lose your foot, calm yourself.”

He reached down to the swollen twist in her ankle, gave her no room to prepare as he raised his blade and cut her flesh. She cried, but he watched as the blood spewed from the bone-deep cut and the swelling seeped away like the blood in the saltwater. He pulled, and she came loose, and he tucked her under his arm and pulled her to the side, to the safety of the mud and grass and fallen tulip petals, covered and hidden in the muck. “You’re okay, you can stop crying now.”

Abele blinked up at him and laughed through the tears, shaking her head in disbelief, in herself, in him, in the life she still had years to live, he couldn’t know. Jon had always dealt with the emotions, showed him how to, but again, he was lost without him. His grip on her arms tightened. “How close I was to becoming Ophelia, how close I was, just now…” Her arms, so skinny, so frigid and sick with trembling, wrapped around his neck as she buried her head in his shoulder. “Oh thank you, thank you!”

A twig broke. Damian glanced up, up to where there was a small waterfall in the stream, where there was a stone to overlook the river where the trunk had so blatantly shifted roles and nearly stilled the running water. It was Cain who stood upon that ridge, and it was his eyes he met. It was in Cain’s eyes he saw right then, he was sure of it, even in the dark shroud of the shade of the trees and the overcast that thundered above, striking behind Cain’s deeply green eyes--  _ mortal animosity. _

* * *

He didn’t know what the meeting was about. He hadn’t been paying attention. Damian was usually the one giving the reports, talking above everyone else, rolling his eyes at suggestions he didn’t like. Jon, for the most part, spent his time in the meetings watching him, or glancing starstruck at his teammates with wonder he still hadn’t quite kicked. But if he looked to his right, like he’d been struggling against this whole hour, he’d find Damian’s seat empty. And if he looked at Starfire, he’d find her watching that seat with unease, watching him with questions he couldn’t answer fully in her matronly eyes. Nightwing was there, though, and he had to tell her, had to have told her. Damian wasn’t there because he was off in London meeting his new family, and he was on the arm of a boy Jon had never met, and  _ it had nothing to do with Jon _ . That’s what Damian had told him, but that was a lie, wasn’t it? He’d said as much, but that didn’t make the knife in his gut twist any less.

The meeting ended, and Jon stood with the intention of heading to the rooftop so he could fly home.

“Superboy,” Nightwing’s jovial voice, a lot like his dad’s, hit the door before he could. “Could you hang back a sec?” The meeting room was empty by then, super-hearing negated, he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t heard him. Starfire and Nightwing circled around the table, and he stared longingly at the door only a few feet away.

Jon sighed and gave them an awkward half-smile as he rubbed at the back of his neck, wanting to go home and stare at the pages of his old grade school essay, but nodding anyway.

Nightwing was smiling at him, arms crossed, gentle, comforting tilt of the head that read  _ I understand you _ , and he couldn’t help but to think he wouldn’t. Starfire was beside him, brushing her hair from her eyes, standing close to Nightwing, so close he was surprised she didn’t take his arm and hold it. But they were professionals, and this was a professional conversation… maybe. “Superboy, please, Robin hasn’t attended a meeting in weeks--”

He raised one hand and gave a playful roll of his eyes. “Nightwing didn’t tell you? Robin’s getting  _ married _ !” The word felt like utter venom and he never thought he’d hate such a sweet word before. “He’s just busy, that’s all!”

“Jon, c’mon,” Nightwing’s easy smile faded. “You and I both know this started before Damian even met Cain.”

“So what? I know what happened?”

“You’re his  _ best friend _ .” Well, Jon scoffed, not anymore.

Starfire frowned, then took a step towards him, one hand outstretched, gentle. “I’m worried about you, too, Jonathan. Your eyes, have you been sleeping?”

“No, not really.” He subconsciously wiped his thumb over one eye, the one that felt somehow a little heavier than the other. “I’m fine, just a little off schedule.” Bad excuse. What schedule? It was summer, he had nothing to do but chores and Titans stuff, and none of that required that he wake up any earlier than noon. “Haven’t been sleeping well.”

Nightwing raised an eyebrow. “Because of Damian?” He flinched and said nothing, turning his head so he could hide his face in his own shoulder, where they couldn’t see all of him, the whole story. “Jon, we know you and Damian got into a fight.”

“It’s more than that.” The words came out unbidden.

Starfire frowned and glanced at Nightwing, who shook his head and shrugged. “Jonathan, you can speak to us if--”

“I can’t.” He nearly bit down on his lip. “You wouldn’t understand.” Wouldn’t understand why he’d broken Damian’s heart, why he threw away their friendship because he mistakenly thought he’d had feelings that weren’t really there. Nightwing might kill him, and then Jason and Tim wouldn’t be far behind, and even his dad couldn’t stop Batman himself if he decided his kid’s broken heart and sudden shotgun wedding were his fault. And they were, they were all his fault. This whole thing was his fault. Damian not coming to the meetings, getting married, hiding from his brothers the way he hadn’t done since he was 13 and trying to prove he fit in.

Nightwing stood by Starfire’s side, then, offering him that same gentle smile, but this time with a sympathetic furrow of the brows. “I’d understand more than you think.”

He rubbed at his arm, glanced away, and said nothing.

Starfire frowned, the faintest hint of indignance in her nose. “Iris has been stopping by the tower looking for you. She says you haven’t been answering her calls, that she’s been worried.” Oh, Iris. She felt too much to handle, right then. He liked her, liked her so, so much, and after the dream he’d had, he wanted nothing more than to show her just what his kryptonian biology was  _ really _ for, but he just couldn’t focus on her. Not when Damian’s face was on every newspaper in the country with a ring the color of  _ his eyes _ on his finger. Not when he hadn’t heard anything about the wedding since he got the invitation, since his family had RSVP’d. Did Damian really want him there? Could he stand there in the crowd and let his best friend get married without him by his side? Would it be  _ uncouth _ to bring Iris as his plus one? How could he explain all of that to her without explaining…?

Nightwing frowned. “Iris doesn’t know what’s going on with you either, does she? Damian’s been rubbing off on you, it’s not like you Supers to internalize like this. Jon, you don’t have to talk to us, but why don’t you at least talk to your--?”

“ _ Because she’s why Damian and I broke up _ !”

Oh no. He’d said it. The words were out, the truth sitting on open air and Nightwing and Starfire were gawking at him with open jaws and wide eyes, and his heart was breaking because it was the  _ truth _ and that’s exactly why he couldn’t see her, couldn’t touch her, because she was why he’d done what he had. He’d forsaken his friendship with Damian for her, lost Damian for her, thought he and Damian could withstand it but he’d been wrong, and her lips and her walk and her voice were just reminders that  _ he’d broken Damian _ . How could he forgive himself? How could he ever get his friend back? How could they ever go back to the way things used to be? He loved him, he loved him so much, but he couldn’t love him  _ like that _ , and he was paying the price for thinking he could.

Nightwing opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to process, trying to form words that would sound right, but Jon could see he was coming up blank. “You… and Dami…?”

He froze, unsure of himself, shocked that he’d said it, terrified because there was no going back. He had to explain himself, or things would get worse, so, so much worse. Jon swallowed, hard, and squeezed his eyes shut as he turned his attention to his feet. He didn’t want to see what Nightwing was thinking. “We kept it a secret. I… I didn’t want anybody to know that I, maybe kinda, ya know…”  _ liked guys _ . He winced at himself. “I-- I really thought-- I really thought I liked him, but then Iris showed up, and I started feeling things, and--!” He shook his head. His mom told him he got like this when he was in a frenzy, talked fast, didn’t make a lot of sense. He had to make sense, here. “I.. I had to figure out how I felt, and I just realized that I… wanted Iris. Damian is my best friend, and that’s what I felt for him, the love anyone feels for their partner in crime, you know? Er, partner in beating crime.”

Because he liked holding hands with Damian, liked kissing him, but they’d never gone any further than that, even though, sometimes, he’d wanted to. Iris didn’t need to touch him to turn him on, just looking at the sway of her hips did it, or her pouting lips, even if the way she grabbed his arm did funny things to him. That was why, that was why he had to break things off with Damian, because Damian didn’t do that to him, didn’t make him drool at just the thought of his lips in private places,  _ he didn’t _ . “I’m… not that guy, I know that now. I was just confused.” He’d never loved a friend the way he’d loved Dami, was what he wanted to say, but then the next part would sound worse, and he scowled at himself, his past self, his current self. “Damian didn’t feel the same way. He… told me he loved me. I…” he couldn’t say it back, not if he was going to mean it.

His shoulders felt so heavy all of a sudden, and he knew why, knew that he could see Damian’s face in the back of his mind, see the blush on his cheeks as he’d turned his head down, pouted at the ground and crossed his arms, so shy, so uncharacteristic for him while he mumbled  _ I love you, Jon.  _ And not far behind that image was the wide-eyed wounded face that came moments after. He could still see the tears Damian never would admit to shedding, the ones that had built in his eyes but hadn’t fallen because Jon had unintentionally drawn all of his armor up at once. He’d spent years peeling every layer back, getting closer, and closer, until he could touch Damian’s skin, feel the heat of the blood that ran in his veins, his biggest virtue and his deepest insecurity. Every piece was a fight, but he’d done it, stripped Damian to his weakest self, his truest self, and Damian had let him see his wounds and let him touch them with hands meant to heal. And then he’d used those same hands to burn him instead. Damian had raised fields of barriers between the two of them, more than had ever been there before, all in an effort to hide how Jon had made him bleed. Rao, he’d cut him so deep, how could he fix that?

He shouldn’t have brought Iris around on his arm so soon, should have waited until Damian was better, until they could see each other at the tower and Damian could meet his eyes. And he’d been stupid instead, took her hand in front of everyone and kissed her pink lips until he’d been satisfied with the way she smiled into it, and when he’d opened his eyes, Damian’s back was turned to leave and he hadn’t stepped a foot through the tower doors since. He’d wanted so badly to run after him, to make things right, to hold his hand and press their foreheads together and make him laugh until he got embarrassed and called him an idiot, all as he buried his head under his chin and pretended Jon didn’t know he was nuzzling into the dip of his throat. He wanted to bury his nose in Damian’s hair and feel the muscles of his back relax under his hands, hold him close and promise him,  _ promise him _ , he’d never hurt him again. But he couldn’t, because he’d chosen her, and that meant he had to let go of Damian’s hand. “I told him I wasn’t gay.”

And now Damian was getting married, and Damian didn’t want to see him anymore.

Nightwing blinked, and Starfire frowned, and they glanced at each other, speaking in silence, the way he’d used to be able to do with Damian. To his surprise, Nightwing shot him an empathetic, jesting smile. “You wouldn’t be the first man to be tempted by a beautiful woman, Superboy.” Starfire elbowed him in the ribs, and he choked but laughed and shot her an apologetic smile.

She turned to Jon, brows furrowed, eyes so sad, big green eyes an uncharacteristic blue in light of the pause and frown that could make any man take a knee and beg to make it better. That was the power of a Tamaranian princess, he guessed. “Jonathan, all wounds heal with time. Damian will heal on his own, have some patience. All strifes pass, and this is no exception.”

He scoffed, and he felt like a little brat for it, but he didn’t care all that much, not right then. “Giving him time doesn’t stop him from getting married.”

“Well,” Nightwing set a hand at his shoulder, still smiles. Jon wished he had it in him to smile. “He hasn’t asked any of us to be his Best Man, yet.” Jon frowned.

* * *

What he’d really wanted to say was… well, it would have been meddling-y, the kind a group of kids and their dog got yelled at for. He’d held back, because Damian wouldn’t have wanted him sticking his nose between Robin & Superboy, but it was so, so hard. Because he knew that look in Jon’s eyes-- regret, loss, a very painful type of yearning that came from massively  _ dicking  _ things up. More so, he knew that every time he’d looked like that, he hadn’t been wishing he could just  _ joke around _ and  _ go on patrol  _ with Starfire. Maybe it was because he’d always stayed friends with his exes, for the most part, but every time he’d seen that look on his face in the mirror, when he saw his reflection and he looked about a foot out earth’s heavenly door, and he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t smile, couldn’t  _ function _ , he knew he had to let his pride take a knee. And it’d gotten him wonderful things, more than he could have imagined, and he knew there was so much more to come. He smiled at her as she sauntered over to him from where he’d plopped down on the couch, arms spread over the back. She had the devil in her eyes, behind the concern and exhaustion, and he knew she was thinking the same things he was.

She sighed. “That could have gone better.”

“I knew Damian must have had a thing for Jon but…” But they’d been together, all along, or at least awhile. Long enough that Damian had let down the rest of his walls, long enough that it’d killed him when he’d gotten punished for it. God, it made so much sense. His baby brother was nursing a broken heart, so of course--  _ of course _ somebody had come along to take advantage, of course Damian had convinced himself it was all his idea, of course. That’s what happens when you walk away from a boy who’d seen turned backs before, who feared them more than anything else, who’d trusted you with every cell of their body and their heart. So he’d turned to somebody who was promising him their wrists up in shackles, somebody who was offering Damian the chain. He was trying to close the gaping wound in his heart by placing a bandaid he mistook for a sewing kit over the deepest of it. It wouldn’t work. He’d get hurt, the kind of hurt somebody didn’t come back from, especially if the Barnetts were as shady as he suspected. Damian had come so far, made so much progress, and he couldn’t stomach it if some stupid mistake tore all of that away, if Damian became a shell of the boy who’d been such a fiery storm of a beacon. He wouldn’t lose the boy who pouted when he ruffled his hair, the one who spent his weekends sketching his cat with an unarmed, content smile, who still rushed to hug him every time he came to visit the manor. So it was up to him to save his brother. He had to stop this wedding, or at least convince Damian to.

Starfire drew closer. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that Damian is going to be in London visiting the in-laws for the rest of the week.”

“Mm…” She nodded, and he lifted the arm he’d laid over his eyes as he’d thrown his head back over the headboard of the couch. She was smiling at him, and god, he loved the way that mischief twinkled in her eyes. She was gorgeous, unearthly. Doing trapeze may not have made his heart skip a beat anymore but she always would. “An opportune time to do some digging into the family he’s promised his hand to.” He raised an eyebrow. She laughed and came closer, lifting a leg to straddle his lap as she wrapped her arms over his shoulders. He took her waist in his hands, and he could hide the way his eyes glanced her body up and down as she slowly sunk upon his lap, but he couldn’t hide the way he loved her when she giggled and he smiled. “I’ve been with you too long to not recognize that snooping face of yours when I see it, Dick Grayson.”

He chuckled. “Guess not. So,” he raised an eyebrow as she pressed her forehead to his, “where do we start?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes! Another chapter! Maybe I'll get SUPER lucky and get another one done this week, just to tide me through the work week ❤️ I'm dropping... so many metaphors and similes, it might be getting too much xD but I'm doing it all for a reason. Flowers, colors, allusions, it's all to hint what is to come. Because I love to see y'all theorizing in the comments 👀 Seriously, I can't get enough of that. I hope Jon wasn't too out of character here, let me know if you all feel like he is!
> 
> Tell me how you're feeling! With this chapter, we are officially halfway through the story, and I wanna thank you guys again for all the love and support, and the well-wishes for me >///< It means a lot. This fandom is great; you guys, specifically, are great. I hope even after this story is done, I can write something that is just as entertaining! ^_^


	10. Menelaus in Exile

16 Days Before The Wedding

* * *

He’d been staring at it for hours, now. Awake, barely, staring at the ring on his finger as it glistened in the light of the night sky that seeped through his crowded window. It was hard to see the stars through the trees, but they shined so bright and the ring on his finger made reflections in the darkness of his guest room. Blue, deep as the night, clear as the sky, the miles above with or without the sun. Even as dusk met the dead of night, and dawn stood hours in the past and hours in time ahead, that ring was still with him. On his hand, reminding him of red and blue. He turned his jaw at it, tried to shut the association away in the furthest places of his mind, but he’d known even then why he’d been drawn to this diamond in particular. He knew it was counterproductive, unnecessary, he should turn it in for a more meaningless clear diamond, but he never could. He knew he couldn’t. He’d never rid himself of the damned glistening stone, no matter the man it swore him to.

Because he could still see eyes of the same color through the glass of his Hamilton home, still see him smiling as he kissed her. It was burned like a seared tattoo into his heart, out on the stoop like a dog, watching the boy on the other side of the leash let it go. Jon’s lips on her throat and his hand at her breast, kneading, her careening closer, bending her back as his hands went lower. He’d seen so much of it, too much of it, and the memory still left him just as despondent and numb as it did the first time. It still broke him in ways he couldn’t articulate, made his chest squeeze and his stomach swallow nothing. He raised his hand and watched the sunlight glisten in his engagement ring, and for once he let the tears fall.

Thick, salty droplets, welling at his eyes as he recalled the way Jon used to kiss him, with his hands polite and gentle at his waist, with shy lips and smiles, the way the ends of Jon’s hair felt when his fingers brushed the nape of his neck where he’d loved to hold him.  _ I want you _ , he’d said, but that was a lie. It was all a lie. Every kiss, every smile, every time he reached for his hand, was he questioning how he felt? In the last few weeks, what was he thinking when he took him in his arms and held him? When he had his hands on his cheeks and their noses at the brush and their eyes locked, was he mulling over ways to cut the string they’d unraveled together? When he caught Jon staring at him from the side, when he’d met his startled eyes and shy smile and cocked an eyebrow because he’d thought  _ Jon just liked him that much _ , was he wondering what would happen if he broke his heart?

Such a fool. He laughed and shut his eyes and grinded his teeth as he wiped uselessly at them. What a fool he was, to think Jon could ever love him, to think, even if just for a little while, that he could ever call him home. He’d thought he had been, he thought so. His chest heaved with his quiet sob, and he stubbornly dug the heels of his hands into his eyes and demanded that they stop. He’d loved him, loved him so, so damn much, and that had been his fault. His mother’s sin and he hadn’t learned from her. Stupid, stupid boy. How could he ever think what they’d had was real?

* * *

He felt like an intruder, creeping around the Barnett Estate, knew he was anything but. The manor felt different at night, menacing, left shivers down the grooves of his spine when he stepped foot out the door of his bedroom without company for the first time. It felt like eyes were on him, not daring him, not warning him, but waiting to see with judgemental, unreasonable whispers what he would do.

So he wandered, blindly, through the dining room and the piano room, through the ballroom and the lounge, never the garden. He just wanted to clear his mind, forget the blue ring on his finger and watch the hours of the night pass on the pastel painted walls of his new family home.

It was by his mistake that he wandered into a smaller lounge, not an office, for lack of desk and books, but decorated by a curving couch and littered with podiums on which the odd trophy stood. Animal heads, bears, cows, moose, and some were odder still-- needles, knives, gloves covered in blood. He glanced around the room in the dark, switching on the light as he looked from trophy to trophy, scowling at the desecrated bodies on animals, contemplating the story behind the needle, until eventually he came to a stop.

One podium, at the center of them all. Damian prided himself on the fact that he did not scare easy, did not scare at all if anybody asked, but the head in the clear box set at the top of a roman pedestal shook him-- that face was familiar. The bulbous head of a man with a goatee, eyes rolled to the back of his head where a jagged line severed it from his body. His tongue was blue with the age of his cold corpse, and it hung from his blue lips and stuck to his pale face as though it’d never been moved. It lost blood to seep through the glass a long time ago-- 11 years ago, in fact, and he knew that because that was the head of his first assigned kill.

Six years old and his mother had gifted him a simple job, a task to prove his training had gone well and his mother had done right by him. An easy first-- and he’d never forgotten his first. He didn’t remember the name, but he remembered the dossier. Mid-40s neet with a porn addiction, spent his time scrambling around his small personally owned video rental shop, touching himself to whatever videos he could find. Had never stuck his nose in the sex trafficking business but he certainly didn’t go out of his way to avoid it, and while the Al Ghuls were not ones to stick their nose up at immoral behavior, vulgar behavior was seldom tolerated. The hit came from his pissed scorned mother, who had all the money in the world and no son to scorn because he’d turned it all away. He’d been told to kill with no remorse for the man-- nothing new, but the specification meant  _ even less remorse than usual _ . So he’d slaughtered the man in cold blood, watched his blood pool at the foot of his x-rated cut-out and cut into the slit he’d carved in his throat. He still remembered the sensation of cut flesh, the smell of blood that burned his nose, his hair in his messy ponytail in his hand as he held the severed head like he would brandish a toy.

It was the first time he’d seen his mother relieved, and the last time she’d ever cooed over him.

So why was that man’s head there, in the Barnett Estate, with blue cheeks and white eyes and veins that colored what little was left of his skin? And then he remembered.

_ Cain raised an eyebrow, mockingly, a corner of his lips raising to show off a thin trail of pearly white teeth, single fang that looked sharper than it probably was. “My sister was always so excited about marrying you. She’d seen your portraits, heard about your first trophy. I believe Talia even sent us the head. She keeps it in a jar, you know, says that your ruthless nature is what draws her to you.” _

Beside it was the very dagger he’d used to slice his miserable little throat open. His stomach churned at the memory.

“She sent it to us as a demonstration of your skill, and your growth.”

He jumped, whipped around with his fists clenched, but it was only Abele. Small, restless Abele. She smiled at him with her hands folded in front of her, polite, pleasant, ringlets of hair loose in waves at her shoulders, hanging delicately at her small shoulders where the straps of her nightgown sat, easy to fall if she moved the wrong way, but he doubted she often did. Her parakeet eyes were heavy-lidded and thin. He gathered that she’d had a hard time falling asleep, too. (She might have felt the same way he did, a history only the walls would know had its eyes on her and the next move was a mystery.) She smiled at him with a nod of her head, an apology for startling him. He relaxed. She took a few steps forward, light taps of her slippers on the tile until she was by his side, staring down at the bloated face of his first kill. He watched her, muscles still pursed under his skin, ready to move at a moment’s notice. She was a mystery he’d yet to solve, and even in his state of unfamiliarity and her state of undress, he felt compelled to keep his teachings close.

She raised one hand to the glass, fingers gracing the delicate edges, so thin-- her and the glass-- that one might forget on the other side of those walls was the face of a man whose life ended perhaps too soon, who’d had years stolen from him. “I was so happy, that day.” Abele started, and her pink lips twisted into a small smile. “My hands were stained with his dried blood for days, until Mama made me wash them. I still have the dress I was wearing, though. I’ve never washed it. It’s in the back of my closet, where nobody else will find it.”

His eyes widened, he swallowed. “Abele, you must understand… I am not--” he paused, regathered himself. “I am not like that anymore.” Not an assassin. Not a killer. He’d promised.

Her eyes fluttered to his in small surprise, lips curved into one small circle, like she’d forgotten he was there, like she’d had this conversation alone with herself a great many times before. Maybe she had. She exhaled a laugh and shook her head. “What concerns me is that you’re not mine anymore, Damian.” A younger him might have bit out that he never had been hers, but the boy he was now knew that, at a time, he might have been, and as far as she’d known, he’d been promised to her, she’d been promised to him. It was not a question of who owned who, it was a question of futures foretold that would never come to pass. He pitied her.

“My whole life, I was told I was going to marry you one day.” She glanced at the ground, with her slippers pointed upwards at each other, toward him, but she kept her hands tied together in front of her, dainty, ladylike, and he couldn’t imagine why. “I was schooled by the best tutors, to be a woman smart enough to stand at your side. I heard for a few years that you didn’t grow an inch, so I stuck to wearing low-heeled shoes for you, because I was sure you’d like that in a girl, for her to be shorter than you.”

She wouldn’t have been wrong. The Damian of five years ago was sensitive about his height, mocked relentlessly by his brothers with hands ruffling hair and Jon-- he winced-- who lorded his height over him and had continued to do so all their lives. The Damian of five years ago would have silently appreciated the thought whilst admonishing her for thinking he needed a buffer for his ego. Perhaps in another time, in a world where he’d never left the throne to his mother, where he’d never become a burden to his father, where he’d never met Jon and got swept off his feet by big smiles and heat vision and red flashing behind the frames of his glasses-- in another time, Abele might have been perfect or him. But not right then, not in this world, where he knew he couldn’t want her even if he’d tried. “I never asked for any of that. I didn’t even know you were supposed to be my--”

She smiled and shook her head, dismissing those words unspoken. “--your wife. I know. I understand.” And he knew she did. He saw his own heartache reflected in those parakeet eyes, but she was better at displaying those emotions with little restraint. He hid, like a coward, behind malice and diversion. “But you see, Damian, I am… blessed.” He raised an eyebrow, and she gave him a big, genuine smile, tired eyes lighting up with something so profound, fondness, and she was happy to let him see all of it.

“You have still chosen to marry into my family, and make an honest man of my brother. I am honored, even if I may never be your wife, to call myself your sister.”

He nearly scoffed, not because what she’d said was stupid, or cheesey, or even presumptuous. No, he simply couldn’t believe she could let him go so easily, so selflessly. She’d loved him all her life, hadn’t she? How, how could she resign herself so simply, how could she be genuinely happy for her brother? For him? Didn’t the thought of him with anyone else twist a knife in her gut? Didn’t she lay awake imagining how things might have been if he’d wanted her, if he’d kept his promise? It wasn’t easier, but he wondered if it was better, better to let go, better to be happy for him.

She was a better woman than he was man.

He sighed, then nodded to the head. “You should bury that. I’m sure he never received a proper burial.”

She blinked in surprise, then giggled and shook her head. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. Even if that is not the you that you are now, that is a memory of the Damian I fell in love with.”

He winced. “But--”

“Damian.”

He turned. At the door, Cain stood with one hand at the rims and edges. He looked a mess. Blonde hair unusually ruffled (he looked more like Jon) and curlier, strands sticking out like a cowlick, nightshirt strewn about over his shoulders, bare chest peeking out beyond the v of his collar and the slope over his arm. His eyes were narrowed, lip upturned in a scowl. Damian raised an eyebrow, and Abele’s eyes lit up at the sight of her brother. “Cain--!” He could hear the heart in her voice. It appeared Cain did not.

He stamped forward, shoulders bent inwards, tense, every step a march toward confrontation. Damian flinched as he reached out and grabbed him by the forearm. “Wha--!” He blinked, and in the next moment, he was in Cain’s chest, hands at either side of his head, tucked under his chin almost defensively. He might have squeaked, but nobody could prove anything. It’d been so long since someone had held him, and somehow, this embrace felt warm, safe, certain. Cain’s arm wrapped around his higher back, while his hand rested against the back of his head, fingers so heated from time spent under covers, tossing and turning. He held him close, tight enough that he couldn’t pull away even if he wanted to, and the beat of his heart that he could hear as his face pressed to his nightshirt seemed to say  _ you are mine, you are mine _ . And he’d never heard those words before. Despite himself, he relaxed and melted into Cain’s embrace.

(Abele blinked, fingers twitching as her best friend looked at her with those eyes, the dangerous ones, eyes he’d never, ever turned on her before. The menace of her protector, the threat he’d turned on every foe he sought who laid a hand on her or tried, it was turned on her now, the way he looked at their father’s enemies. Was she his enemy? He looked all the world like he could kill her, with his hands around Damian, with no playful glint in his eyes, only death, only admonishment. The warning was clear, and she tried to speak, but there were no words. She was scared, scared of him.)

“Come, Damian, we’re going to bed.” Damian (did  _ not squeak _ ) inhaled as Cain whipped around, took not his wrist, but his hand, and dragged him forward to the hall.

(She watched as they went, and she smiled. Because that made sense. She was his enemy now, she should have known. Well, if she was his enemy, she had no plans on fighting back. “Oh… I see.” Tears pricked at her eyes, blurred her vision, and they burned. It hurt. It hurt so bad. Her lips wobbled, and she’d tried so hard to smile for him, but she couldn’t anymore. Was this what they were now? For as long as she stood at their side, would he see her as a threat? Not his burden, not his duty, not his friend, not his cute little sister. That. That hurt so much worse than losing her future. She hung her head and let out a sob. “If you are happy, my dear brother, then I shall be, as well!”)

He wasn’t sure why he was letting Cain do this, wheel him around by the hand like a ragdoll. He had no leash, and yet he followed, dutifully. The halls felt warmer when he wasn’t alone. The eyes he’d felt in the walls faded into the pastel wallpaper, and there no longer seemed to be a question about what he would do under this roof. Cain wasn’t looking at him, he nigh felt he refused to. “Cain--!” He stumbled over the break-neck pace. “What was all that about? Why are you--?”

“Forgive me, My Love,” he mumbled, maybe for himself. “Even a man like I can feel envious of those who want you.”

Just like that, his heart skipped a beat. His cheeks grew flush as he watched the muscles on Cain’s back strain under his shirt at the angle from which he pulled him along. He really… wanted him. Cain wanted him, wanted him enough that he was jealous, that he would stake a claim with no shame, no embarrassment, make it clear even to his own sister that he was  _ his _ . There was no question about how he felt, there was no hesitance in the way he reached for him, only certainty and lien. Even he believed it, in that moment, that he belonged to Cain. And for just a moment, he wondered if he was starting to like it.

* * *

He sighed and fell backwards into his bed with a thump, sheets billowing under his sudden weight. The weight of one. Alone. Because Iris had just left and he hadn’t had it in him to invite her upstairs. He scowled at himself. Iris was his girlfriend, it should have been easy to say “Hey, you wanna come up to my room?” or “I’ve missed you so much, let me show you”. But no, she’d stopped by because he hadn’t been answering her calls, and he’d told her that he hadn’t been sleeping, and they’d laid on the couch with her arms crossed at his stomach and his eyes shut, tv shifting in color as the news Iris had turned on switched from one story to the next. She’d turned it on low, stared up at him, and he’d set a hand at the back of her head and smiled down at her and apologized for being such a jerk. She’d smiled back and nuzzled into his palm, then told him “Don’t do that to me again” with a gleam in her eye.

It all felt so very platonic.

She’d been eyeing him the whole time they’d been laying there together, and her nails had tipped and tapped at the small strip of his skin that laid bare between his ruffled t-shirt and his jeans. The way she pressed her lips to the skin above the button and zipper, it said “There’s a sleeping aid I know,” and “Tell me you’ve thought about it, too”. He’d have been lying if he’d said he hadn’t, so he said nothing, because he just… didn’t have the energy. Not right then. It was so funny, he spent all that time wishing he could go back to their first time, the only time, and feel her hands on him, kiss her, touch her again with desperate hands. He wanted to hook her underwear on his thumbs and pull it down while he practiced tongue twisters on skin he hadn’t tasted yet with his lips, thought about it a lot, used the thought to ground himself when he found his mind wandering to a Gotham skyscraper and a ring the color of his eyes. But right then, he just wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her up to his chest and laid there with her talking about nothing in particular. Her hair felt so nice between his fingers, but he didn’t feel like digging his fingers anywhere else, not right then.

So after an hour or two, she left, because she’d already been running late to meet up with her dad, and she was satisfied with the attention, and he’d waved her goodbye then retired to his room at 2 in the afternoon. And he was mad about it. He’d had her-- right there. He could have been a better boyfriend, could have had her hands pulling at his hair with her legs up in the sky, but he didn’t. Why hadn’t he? He was tired, he was sad, he was feeling a little lost, but none of that mattered. No, he thought as he clenched his fist in the sheets of his bed. It was because of Damian. Because of their fight, because Damian told him that the thought of his hands on Iris kept him up at night, because even though he’d done everything right and broke up with Damian, never laid a hand on Iris before they were over, he still felt so  _ guilty. _ And he knew that it was stupid at this point, knew that he couldn’t help it if Damian was hurt, knew that letting that get in the way of his relationship with Iris was potentially dooming, but that’s how it was. He could think about making love to Iris all day long, could devise a plan of where he’d touch her and when and how, imagine her writhing under him from start to finish, but actually touching her, now? He couldn’t. Didn’t want to for some reason.

And it was ridiculous, because Damian was engaged, was probably messing around with his fiance as he laid there all by his lonesome.

His eye twitched.

Jon turned, grabbed his pillow, and screamed into it.

* * *

He gasped, a small, sharp intake of breath that welled in his throat and coated his chest in heat. Damian’s eyes sparkled in the light of the moon, alight with mischief and tied with a coy smile. His face was a leading question when they were saddled on his bed like this, with Damian laying over his chest, chin between his heart and the ribs. “You missed me, Superboy?”

He laughed. “You know I did.” He reached up, rested his palm against Damian’s face, watched the way he leaned into the touch, how his eyes fluttered closed, light and content as he graced the apple of his cheek with his thumb. He was so pretty, when he was like this-- happy. “Dami, I missed you so much.”

“Show me, Beloved.”

He wanted to, felt lost as Damian pressed his hands against his chest, ran them up and down in languid strokes, fingers brushing the most sensitive spots, making him grunt. He responded in kind, ran one hand down his back, imagined it curving under him, for him. He imagined the mischief in those green eyes fluttering shut in pleasure, imagined Damian’s lips parting with small gasps as he pleaded for mercy. He pressed his forehead to Damian’s and let the tips of his fingers trail down, down, down until he was grazing his tailbone, until Damian gasped. He brushed his nose against Damian’s, leaned forward to kiss him then moved back with a teasing smile as Damian tried to meet him. He lowered his fingers until they brushed the curve of the crease between his end and his thighs, then set his palm against the cheek and squeezed. The reaction was instantaneous. Damian gasped and his body responded naturally, he knew without Damian’s consent, inching back to press against that hand, giving him more. “You like that?”

He didn’t wait for an answer, just squeezed again, dug his fingers into the skin, teased the edge that led to another more intimate place, one Damian seemed increasingly keen on letting him explore. “ _ Jon… _ ” Oh, he shouldn’t have said his name like that. Damian leaned up to kiss him, but he pulled back, teasing him, smiling as Damian whined and rutted against him. The image of his bed rocking, of the sound of wood hitting the carpet of his room, melding with Damian’s breathless whimpers, the sound of his name in a million different ways, the thought of  _ Damian begging _ ... 

“Dami, tell me what you want.” He whispered it against Damian’s parted lips, felt him gasp and felt the heat of his exhale as he realized Jon wasn’t kissing him-- not yet. “Tell me, baby, what do you want?”

“You,” Damian gasped, hands clutching at his shoulders. “I love you, I want you.”

Damian should have been upset by that petname, should have thought it beneath him, should have glared at him when he wouldn’t kiss him, should have been all embarrassed about the way Jon was touching him-- but none of that mattered right then. Right then, all that mattered was that Damian’s hands were snaking under his shirt, skin on skin, and his nails were raking over him in a way that screamed  _ you’re mine _ , in a way that Damian was marking his property, and all he wanted to do was return the favor. He reached down and took Damian’s rear in both hands, palmed them and squeezed until he was forcing them apart. Damian moaned against his throat, took to kissing him there as his hands explored his body. “Oh, Dami…” He slid his palm around Damian’s waist, came to the front where the button of his pants came undone. Damian bit at his adam’s apple, and he smoothed his hand down his pants, beyond that button and beyond the Calvin Klein waistband, eager to feel him there, see what new faces Damian would make. “ _ Oh, Dami…  _ Dami, I--!”

And in the next moment, he was awake.

Tangled in his sheets, alone, with the evening sunset of Hamilton easing through his window where Damian used to creep in. His limbs were wrapped tight and tugged at his sleeves and pant legs, but the heat of another body rising and begging against his own was… absent, replaced only by the tightness of his jeans and the mess he’d found himself knotted in with his sheets. He was alone, and in that moment he wanted, so desperately, not to be.

He spared a glance at his phone, thought about calling Iris, but he found he was still too tired, and he relented to the quiet of his room at dusk.

[ (He could still feel Damian’s body under his like a memory on his skin, and he was craving the heat of his palm with their fingers laced and their sweat on his tongue. He could make himself promises but the heart wasn’t yearning for lies.) ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dpzrSNWPbU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I GOT THROUGH RUSH WEEK!!! o(≧o≦)o I just wanna thank everybody for sticking with me this far and being so patient! All week, all I've wanted to do was write this chapter, but between my Japanese class and work and some misunderstandings on my part and having to re-register for some classes, it was simply not possible. I hope this chapter erm... makes up for it ;)
> 
> So what do we think? Damian is still just as in love with Jon as he was before, but Cain is starting to find a home in his heart, too! Jon... well, he's in denial, and this is becoming increasingly difficult for him to ignore :P I have a full, more x-rated dream that I wrote out and decided against for reasons I can't specify, and I'm CONSIDERING posting it on tumblr as a small drabble instead 👀 Holla at me on my tumblr if you wanna see it 😁 Also, the song this time? Exile? So fits this fic. I'm so glad my friend Yogi made me listen to Taylor's new album :X
> 
> Onto something super, super cool-- my friend Reverza over on tumblr drew Cain!!!!
> 
> Look at him! He's so perfect! Reverza is so talented and so amazing, please please please go check out their damijon art, it's magnificent: 
> 
> https://reverzaartandprojects.tumblr.com/post/627600154047987712/
> 
> and as a team, we may have something planned coming a little later 👀
> 
> Per my friend anothertimdrakestan's request, i-resent-this-hellsite also drew Cain, was the first to do so, and I'm still screaming about it. Go give their tumblrs an eye, too!  
> https://anothertimdrakestan.tumblr.com/  
> https://i-resent-this-hellsite.tumblr.com/


	11. Menelaus in Shambles; Ophelia With Roses

14 Days Until The Wedding 

* * *

The penthouse apartment stood fourteen floors above ground level, and its ceiling spanned at least two. The walls and floors were black as ebony, tiles that reflected the fluorescent light from the modern chandeliers that hung above. Cain’s bed was a white plane with messed sheets he’d probably never folded a day in his life, left side pressed to the north wall, a window with white pane that overlooked Gotham. It was a nice view in the daytime, and he mused that it was a sight to behold when the blue sky fell. He’d seen his fair share of Gotham’s beauty from where he’d spent his nights-- rooftops and city bridges. The lights of the city shined like nowhere else, but he imagined that they’d shine all the brighter with somebody to share it with. He glanced at Cain and ran one reverent finger over his ring. “Not bad.”

“Oh, My Love,” Cain laughed, strutting forward with open arms, spread to the sky with a wide smile, backed by the sun and the great blue sky as he presented his home away from home. “You expected anything less?” No, of course not, especially after he’d visited the Barnett family estate. He’d just expected something less modern, sleek. Cain’s sense of home decor lined up inexplicably well with the tastes of, say, his father. The bathroom was a rectangular shutaway off to the side, and smaller than Bruce Wayne would ever stand for, but it fit the feel of the penthouse, fit the feel of Cain with its gold bar handles and knobs, just fine. Cain quirked an eyebrow at him, then twisted around to face the window, taking in the glory of Gotham’s newest day. “Of course, once we tie the knot, I’ll move us somewhere nicer. With a yard, for our children.” He whipped around again, and Damian blinked at the positively _giddy_ smile lighting up his face. “Oooh! And a dog! A horse?” His heart skipped a beat, against his will, and he resisted the urge to pinch himself. This perverted fool, with wide eyes and a sunny smile, who talked like a lord and walked like a purebred golden retriever, the thought of a future with _him_ , it delighted this absolute child of a man. Of course he wanted a dog, and a horse, a family, everything he’d ever wanted, too. Of course, some stupid thread of gold had linked him to this idiot, and he was starting to find that the thought of forever with him, while still not pleasant, wasn’t the sentence he’d anticipated.

He could see not a farm, but a plantation or homestead, wide open fields for miles. Maybe an old home he and his lover would refashion, repaint the walls to be white, or light blue, with casement windows, glass blocks. He could see small children riding horses in the back, curly black hair and pink lips with big smiles. He couldn’t count them, too many, too little, they faded in and out depending on where he turned his head. He could see a dog, a border collie, brown and white with its tongue hanging from its jaws, lapping at and nipping at the ankles of the smaller children, leading them home to where he stood at a white table with a striped umbrella overhead. Beside him, a grill and a man with an apron on. The smell of burgers and veggies wafted through the air, and the turned back and focused, lightly strained muscles of the chef over the fire made his heart salivate just as well. (He tried not to pay any mind to the blue in the eyes of the six or so children that wandered the yard with the stead, or the way the sun hit raven hair on that turned back). His lips quirked up in a smile.

“Whatever you want, _Ameli_.”

An uncharacteristic flush passed Cain’s cheeks, almost as though he hadn’t expected that response, and that would have been fair. The flustered curve of his lips turned into a jubilant beam that felt like a dog wagging its tail, and when Cain threw himself into his arms and nuzzled into his neck and laughed, it felt like a dog’s paws and claws at his chest. He sputtered as Cain spun them around from the sheer force of it, surprised by the affection, unsure what to say. Cain said it for him, toothy smile against the crook of his neck as he bent forward to better gather him in his arms. “Damian! I’m so happy!”

He didn’t want to admit that there was a new heat under his collar, on his face, but it was there. He smiled to himself, in the moment that nobody could see him, then turned his head to nestle against his fiance’s mane of yellow.

* * *

Todd was whistling at him. He rolled his eyes as he stepped out of the changing room and onto the small podium, sparing himself a glance at the three-way mirror that curved to show him every angle, even the ones he preferred not to see. “Hey, hey, hey! Not lookin’ bad, Demon Brat!”

He glanced over his shoulder to find that Todd was indeed wearing a shit-eating grin, while Grayson’s smile was small, warm, unassuming. Drake was raising an eyebrow, but he could see there was a small smile threatening to tug at the corner of his mouth. _His father_ , though, his father who was lounged in a loveseat with his arm at the rest, his eyes were so much softer than they normally were when he was looking at his only blood son, at him. He wasn’t trying to hide that smile, not because he wasn’t putting up barriers, but because he almost appeared to have no clue of the countenance that came upon his face at all. Batman never looked at him like that, and Bruce Wayne was a facade, but the eyes that were looking at him then-- they were the eyes of a _father_ , _his father_. It made his cheeks burn.

The whole family was strewn about the personal fitting room, despite the fact that he had explicitly told them all that their presence _was not needed_ at a simple tux fitting. Grayson had argued it was the tux they’d see him get married in, it was important, and to Damian’s never-ending surprise, both Drake and Father agreed. Less to his surprise, Pennyworth was quick to usher them all out to the car. So as he pranced around, undressing and adorning his body with what the seamstress assured him was the finest silk and sew, Todd and Grayson lounged at a loveseat, Drake took a seat at the lawson-style chair while Father took the wingback. Pennyworth stood at Father’s side, the ever-present butler and companion. It was such a hassle, having a handful of eyes on him as the woman he’d never met felt him up with pins. (He was thankful for it, for the interest, though the reasoning eluded him. He’d take the engagement for what it was worth to him.)

“Perfect! You look simply perfect! The very ideal of a modern groom!” The Barnett family's personal seamstress beamed up at him with clasped hands, eyes alight with her design on his body, looking up at him like Helen of Troy with sparkles behind her thick-rimmed glasses, like she was the goddess of love, herself. She turned to his family while he turned to face himself in the mirror. “You Waynes just make the prettiest babies, don’t you?”

His father laughed, the laugh he rarely heard, the one that wasn’t Bruce Wayne, the one that was _him_. He’d heard it only a few times in the past, the chime of his father’s low chuckle, and usually it was that Kyle woman who drew it out of him. “He’s the spitting image of my father at that age.”

Pennyworth cleared his throat into his fist, eyeing Father from the side with a sly smile Damian couldn’t dissect. “Spitting image of you, actually.”

Damian glanced at his father in the mirror and found his smile grew all the more fond.

He glanced down at the lapels of his suit, giving them a tug. “My fiance won’t be pleased it’s not white, but I told him I wouldn’t wear it.” It was instead a rose beige, champagne button-up adorned with damask print at the not-yet fitted sleeves. The vest of the same pattern sat buttoned at his chest. It was a far cry from the virginal white Cain seemed somehow set on dressing him in, and that was in and of itself enough to color him pleased with the suit. Drake laughed out loud.

“You sure he didn’t wanna put you in an actual wedding dress?”

Damian turned over his shoulder and glared at him. “I’ve been likened to a bride much too often recently for my liking.”

“It’s ‘cause you’re so pretty, Demon Brat.” He whipped around and glared at him, and Todd found that all the more amusing because the grin on his face grew thrice as wide, not at all concerned with the death he was trying to promise with his eyes. Todd snickered into his hand, but he wasn’t trying to hide it, no. Damian knew his brother too well. 

His father laughed, again, an oddly contemplative look falling over his face As though he was remembering something, a fond memory, though it might have been. He glanced to his father, and their eyes met, and he seemed to almost come to his conclusion at that very moment. “There are a few features he definitely gets from his mother…”

No, it couldn’t be! He whipped around, jaw askew, eye twitching. “ _Father_ ,” he admonished. “Not you too!”

“I mean,” Grayson raised one flat hand and tipped it from side to side, noncommitted, on the surface at least. His smile told Damian exactly what he was thinking, that he actually had the audacity to _agree_ with the rest of these… _these hooligans_! “If we put a wig on you…”

“Cut it out! I am a _man_!” The sting in his vocal chords indicated that the hitch in his voice probably wasn’t doing him any favors, the collective laughter of his father and brothers doubly indicated so. The seamstress reached up and stuck pins at his collar, his only saving grace in the torment of his sudden stint as a jester.

“A very handsome one, at that. The Young Master is a lucky man, if I do say so myself!”

At the thought of Cain’s parakeet eyes and his mischievous smile, he felt his body relax, sooth. That was the idiot he was marrying, the stupid face he was going to see at the end of the aisle. One day, one day soon, when this wedding was over, he would no longer be a Wayne, perhaps no longer be Robin. He’d be a Barnett, and he’d have a mother with a loud mouth, a father who rarely spoke, and a sister with whom he could spar, could teach to use the very sword she’d kept by the head of his first kill all these years. He could help her find a more suitable match, a man who would love her as fiercely as he was aware her brother did. He’d have a husband who couldn’t seem to keep his hands to himself, and though Cain would likely _lose a hand_ by the end of their honeymoon (he hadn’t even _thought_ of that, hadn’t let it cross his mind because he and Cain were yet to so much as _kiss_ ), it was leagues better than the family who always felt at the brink of disowning him. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Even now, how was he meant to feel when they were being so warm, so jovial? Perhaps, he pondered, they were as relieved at the thought of him leaving as he was. His stomach churned achingly. He whispered more to himself: “I’d think myself the lucky one.”

The seamstress smiled, but the laughter over his turned back drowned out, choked by a sudden silence, by disorientation. He could see Drake and Todd looking at each other, gears in their stupid little minds already turning, as slow as they usually were, with blatant bewilderment. Their eyes traveled between each other and his back, he could see it in the mirror. Todd gave an awkward smile, leaned back against his seat on the fancy little yellow couch and threw his arm over the back of it. “Wait a minute… Demon Brat, do you _like_ him?”

And just like that, Damian decided he didn’t like the suit. It was much too tight, too hot, and the wedding festivities would be held outside in the garden-- the damn collar would be much too stuffy! He scoffed. “N-No! Don’t be ludicrous!”

Drake raised an eyebrow, less out of his typical know-it-all poindexter attitude that he so greatly detested, and more out of… genuine curiosity? Concern? No, that couldn’t have been right. Drake would never worry about him, and what would he worry for anyway? Damian was fine. He was just fine. “I mean, Damian, you’re marrying the guy, is it really so bad to admit that maybe you--?”

“ _He is my fiance and nothing more, I will hear nothing else of it!_ ” He crossed his arms over his chest pointedly, scowling (not _pouting_ ) into the mirror as the seamstress hummed and continued her work. He wondered if she spoke to the Barnetts, if word would get back to Aiden, back to Cain, but the concern was foolish. Cain knew as well as he did that this whole arrangement was for financial and political prosperity, for power. Whatever it was Cain felt for him, he had to understand that it was… impossible for him to return those feelings. He’d made as such clear from Day One, hadn’t he? He twisted the ring at his finger.

(Bruce’s palm clenched over the arm of the chair, eyes narrowing at nothing. Jason and Tim glanced at each other, doubt in their eyes, and they weren’t trying to hide that from each other. They felt the same way-- Bruce and Alfred felt the same way. Dick glared at the ring Damian so longingly toyed with at his finger.)

* * *

Tonight would have been one of the nights Robin and Superboy patrolled together. He should have gotten used to the new normal by now, shouldn’t have still anticipated Robin showing up at his bedroom’s window, tapping away with that cocky grin on his face, the way things had been since he was ten. But they weren’t like that anymore. No, nowadays Superboy left the farm and flew around Metropolis seeking comfort in the moonlight, in the stars and the way they still shined even when Robin wasn’t there to overshadow them. Usually they were the backdrop, usually he could just tell they were there, beyond the shoulder straps of Robin’s cape, beyond that scowl he always wore that had lost its biting edge over each passing year. They played a chorus to Robin’s solo, he was the moon, they were the underlining stars-- _Superboy_ was an underlining star, _Superboy_ was the bottomless sea. And how was he supposed to shine when there was no moon to push and pull him like a tide? The stars looked so close when he knew they were so far, and sure he could fly out to them if he wanted, but that felt so wrong.

He couldn't move if the moon wouldn't guide him.

Superboy paused in the hot summer of Metropolis’s sky, raising one hand to caress the sea above where he could see the little lights glistening against bluish black, like he could touch them if he tried, like he could feel skin under his hand, (like he could feel lips, taste mint), but then he opened his hand, and there was nothing there. And that hurt. He shut his eyes tight and pretended there were yellow-gloved hands in his own. “I wish I never kissed you,” a partial lie, only a quarter way the truth, but if it meant his nights would taste the same again, look the same as they did on Gotham’s high towers over city nightlife, then he’d tell as many as he had to, “...then we wouldn’t be here right now, would we, D?”

He heard in the distance, a few miles away, a cry. A woman, probably young, early twenties, lost in the city. Not Metropolis, somewhere else, somewhere close (for him, anyway). Central City? He could hear the cars rushing by as her screams echoed over walls. An alleyway. How classic. He rolled his eyes and took the distraction for what it was. He could beg for forgiveness later for encroaching on another hero’s turf.

And he’d been right. A girl, early twenties, maybe nineteen, clutching her purse to her chest with the fear of death, the fear of worse in her eyes as she stumbled away from the men that approached her. They all wore ski caps and grinning mugs, the kinda guys that thought Metropolis was their playground, that they could rise to the top with petty thievery, that they could do what no villain had ever done and take down the Man of Steel himself. Because that’s what all the petty crooks thought, that it couldn’t be that hard, that all the men who came before were exaggerating, were just a little too weak. Here, he knew, they thought they’d be dealing with The Flash-- but Superboy had met The Flash, and if they thought he’d be any easier to take down, they were in for what was probably a very embarrassing wake-up call, probably strung upside down from the police station with their heart-printed boxers hanging out because Barry Allen was funny like that. He’d save them the embarrassment of that by showing up to clock them in the face before Uncle Barry even had the opportunity to.

“You owe our man Barney some big cash, baby girl.”

“You had a lotta fun with ‘is product, didn’tcha? He was real nice ‘bout given’ you that seed, wadn’t he?” One of the crooks swung a small baggie around, presumably with the drugs he and his buddy were pedaling for _Barney_.

“Please,” she sobbed, and her ankles wobbled in the heels she was probably already stumbling around in, judging by the height of them. A tight dress, meant for nightlife, for dark rooms with rainbows of lights that flashed, for hot bodies and dirty bathrooms. She didn’t look addicted to anything, but he gathered what he’d needed to. Those men were drug dealers, she was a buyer. He’d take care of this quick, ask her if she wanted to talk to somebody, maybe swing her to Gotham where he knew Bruce Wayne had set up a rehabilitation center. She was a pretty girl with big innocent eyes, green (green like Christmas lights, like eyes in a dimly-lit restaurant, eyes in the citylights) and it broke his heart to think of anybody taking advantage of her. “Please, I just need another week, I won’t ask for any more!”

“You won’t have to.” She gasped as he lowered himself a few feet ahead of her, between her and the goons that stood cracking their knuckles like mobsters in one of the bad black and white noir films he and Damian used to watch together. He crossed his arms and hovered a few inches off the ground. “Come on, guys, I don’t want to have to hurt you. Just come down to the precinct with me, okay?” He could hear Robin clicking his tongue in his ear, _when has that ever worked, Beloved?_ He flinched.

“Long way from Kansas, ain’t ya?” One snickered, like it was funny, like he hadn’t heard that one a million times before. Superboy rolled his eyes.

The man with the baggie stuck it in his pocket, but not before fingering at the substance and zipping it back up. He didn’t sniff at it, didn’t stick the tip of his finger in his mouth, which meant whatever that stuff was snuck into the skin-- that was bad. “Let’s make this quick, ay, Supes?”

Supes was his father, but he wasn’t about to dignify that with a response. He dove forward, raised one fist to strike that smug little grin on that dirty face of Thug #1-- _only to find his fist was weaker than usual_. The punch that should have knocked the man aways back, right to the mouth of the alley, only sent him falling on his back. Superboy choked, and he raised one hand to his throat and clawed at it. This wasn’t right. This was like… an allergic reaction, almost? Like he was some human kid with a bad reaction to peanuts. Was it possible…?

An elbow came down over the back of his neck, and though it didn’t hurt, didn’t knock him to the ground, it still left him stumbling backwards, disoriented. He glared and gave his best snarl, the one he’d cultivated after years of interrogations with Robin at his side. Robin always laughed at him when he made that face, because he knew Jon would never ever raise a hand to him, but the bad guys in alleyways threatening impressionable girls should have had some fear.

But these men only stared at him, eyes wide, because the Boy of Steel was yielding to them, and he was sure that wasn’t how they expected this to go, either. His heart thumped painfully in his chest, and he stumbled again, clutching at his hoodie, tangling the zipper in his fingers as he struggled to even his breathing. Searing pain, like a mist over his body, like a miasma choking him, sticking to his limbs and twisting them in eternal burns. Whatever that drug was, whatever was in it, it was bad, and it was very possible this was the last anybody was going to see Superboy. By the spine-twitching grins etching like knives to skin over their faces, the thugs were thinking the same thing.

They moved forward, and he shut his eyes, and despite himself, despite everything, he thought: _Damian_!

There was a boom, and a scream, and he felt the air rush by his face the same way the wind hit him when he was flying, and that was how he realized he was falling. Falling fast, with his knees in the cement, cement on his torn jeans, and his lungs squeezing him. He choked. “Hey, Hey Superboy!” There were arms on his waist, hoisting him up, easy like he was a little kid again. “Superboy! Hey!” He blinked and in the gaussian blur that was his stinging eyes, he saw red. Red and yellow.

“D...Dam...ian…” Though the stinging kept coming, though he felt his throat closing and his skin burning and his chest struggling to conceal his heart that was desperately beating in a last ditch attempt to live, that name alone, the arms around him, they were a comfort. Superboy blinked again and saw the symbol of a bolt, saw no green. He felt like throwing up.

Flash hoisted him over his shoulder. “Let’s get you home, Superboy.”

* * *

13 Days Until The Wedding 

* * *

Being home, at the manor, it was odd. The red walls, the wood instead of tile, the company of the fireplace in every living room, it all felt… warmer than the Barnett Estate had, and he’d come to anticipate the opposite. He’d thought, all this time, that Wayne Manor lacked a certain homely quality to it, a quality he’d been swamped by every time he stepped through the front door of the Kent Farm, but he’d been wrong. He’d forgotten how cold Nanda Parbait had been, how expectations never stopped, how even though he could say the same of his company at the manor, he could also say he was taken care of. Well-fed, benched when injured instead of pushed. The Barnett Estate had the strikingly similar atmosphere of a war-torn city, split by ruler, drenched in blood, even though he doubted a single person in that house had ever raised a finger to kill.

He sat at the kitchen table sipping tea while Pennyworth prepared breakfast, with Todd and Drake on either side of him, and he felt home again.

“So,” Drake started conversationally, like he was looking for something to say, like it was that difficult to just talk to his brother. He wondered if it was. “How was England?”

“It was nothing special.” Aside from that first night, aside from Cain’s smiling face, his hands on him as he lost sight and control. Aside from waking the next morning and finding Cain dressing himself. Details his family didn’t need to know.

Drake seemed unappeased by his answer, raising an eyebrow at him over the rim of his batman coffee mug. He took a sip as the brown hit his lip. “What were the future in-laws like?”

Damian shrugged, unsure how to answer. They were okay, or perhaps a word that was slightly more neutral. Distant from their children, yet simultaneously hands-on, smothering-so. He didn’t let himself think too much on it. “... They were fine. A bit eccentric, perhaps.”

Todd choked on his orange juice as he laughed. Why was he even there? Didn’t he have a safe house to return to? A girlfriend to ride like a prized mule? “Eccentric? As in they dress up as bats and run around beating in thug faces or…?”

Damian glared at him, setting his mug of tea at the table, warm between his palms. Todd stared back at him, amusement plain as day on that face, with his leg crossed over his knee, his arm slung back over the chair. He thought he was being _funny_. “I have reason to suspect there is some… mild dysfunction.”

Drake blinked, but returned his gaze to the morning articles and tabloids he read from his tablet. “Mild how?”

“Cain’s mother seems rather dependent on drink, and his father seems unbothered by that.” The fact that the drink she was so bedeviled with was stronger than even the highest-proof vodka and carried three times the aphrodisiac of a normal wine was information his brothers need not be privy to. He himself hardly needed to concern himself with it. He was sure whatever Cain’s father was doing was perfectly legal, or at the very least perfectly covert.

Todd and Drake looked at each other, and Todd laughed and threw his arms up and said “Sounds like a regular ol’ rich family to me.”

Drake, however, seemed less accepting of that answer, for one reason or another. He set his coffee down, turned his full attention on him, it was almost unnerving. “That’s all? You didn’t notice anything… weirder than that?”

Damian blinked, staring over his mug, into the distance where the rest of the long rectangular dining table sat empty, at nothing. He paused for a moment, then set his mug down. “What, exactly, are you implying?”

Drake jumped to his own defense. Typical. “Look, I’m just saying, they’re friends with your mom, right? So it stands to reason--” 

Drake was looking up at him with alarm, then, and he realized, with a start, that he’d stood up, that he’d slammed his hand on the dining table and made the delicate make of their dining ware shake. He felt foolish, because he shouldn’t have been surprised. If Father thought it, surely his brothers did too, surely even Grayson. That’s why they’d all left him there alone at the manor, because they’d had about enough of Batman, and Damian just wasn’t enough to make them stay. How could he be? He wasn’t one of them, wasn’t c _hosen_ . He was hoisted upon them by a woman they all spat the name of over the bodies of assassins. He was just like her, had her eyes, had her talk, her walk, of course-- _of course_ they all felt the way Father did. He was stupid to think those looks at the seamstress’s shop had been real, that the cajoling he’d been the subject of had been those of teasing brothers and not insiders watching the outsider pack his bag. “So anybody affiliated with the Al Ghuls in the slightest must be damned, Drake? Suspicious? Guilty?”

Drake’s face dropped, and he raised his hands defensively. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! I never said that!” And that only hurt more, because that look on his face meant he _meant_ it, that those words were true and spoken with the accidental dismissal of a filter.

Todd didn’t bother to spare him his ego, either. He chuckled and said “Ya gotta admit, Demon Brat, anybody your mom trusts couldn’t exactly be squeaky clean.”

“She trusted you!”

“And I extort king pins for a living, I’m not exactly a model citizen.”

Drake clicked his tongue and rubbed the bridge of his nose between his eyes. Annoyed. Burdened. Just like he always was, like they all were when it came to him. “Damian, look, I’m just saying that maybe you should take a closer look at the family you’re marrying into--”

No, he didn’t want to hear anymore. They’d get into a fight, it would hurt, he’d be left feeling more eager than ever to hop in the getaway car with Cain and never look back, and he still had two weeks before he could do that. Unless he could convince Cain to elope? He shook his head, because that wasn’t what had been agreed upon. Cain would want a big wedding, the least he could do for giving only himself was give him at least that. “I know what I must, and that is that I am welcomed and revered by the Barnetts and those who serve them. It will be quite the contrast to what I’m dealing with now!” He turned on his heel and stormed out of the kitchen, leaving his tea unfinished.

(Tim stared at the empty doorway and grimaced, sliding his head down onto the table between his arms as he moaned in irritation. Jason laughed to himself and shook his head. “So… were you _trying_ to piss him off?”

Tim raised his head, setting his chin at his arm, and glared at him.“I was just looking for information.” Jason threw his head back and cackled.

“Where? In the ass he has bared for the pseudo-crime family he’s marrying into?”

“Jason!”

“Replacement.” Said with a shit-eating grin and a sip.

Tim sighed and pushed aside his half-full mug, thinking instead it looked more half-empty. “Maybe I overstepped. I’m just trying to help.”

“I have a better way of doing that.” To their never-ending surprise, Dick appeared in the doorway, and his face was devoid of the usual smile he wore when he was between the halls of Wayne Manor. In his hand was a manila folder, thick with papers. He threw it on the dining table. Jason reached for it first, and Tim looked up with furrowed brows. Dick looked between the two of them as Jason licked his finger and flipped over the first page, looking pale, looking so very tired, and Tim almost wondered if he’d looked this way for a while. “Kori and I have been looking into some things…” He said this as his body raised and fell against the wall, eyes fluttering shut before he opened them again, but they knew what Tired Dick looked like, and there was something aside from bat-invoked insomnia keeping him awake at night.)

* * *

When he finally opened his eyes, there was a ceiling over his head, and he didn’t feel rested on the cold rainy ground of a Central City alley. It didn’t take him long, between the smell of the sheets over his body, and the popcorn paint on the ceiling, for him to gather that he was in his room, in his bed. “You’re finally up, Champ.” Jon blinked.

His dad sat at his bedside, shirt in an unbuttoned mess, hair a little mussed, the signature curl on his head amiss in the rest of his hair. He’d been there awhile, that much was obvious. How long had he been out? His dad shot him a smile, and as if reading his mind, went to say “You were out all day. Doc says you’ll be fine, that you probably wouldn’t have been out this long if you were taking better care of yourself.” _If you’d been sleeping,_ were the implied words. _If you’d been eating more than half your dinner and taking it easy on your chores and leaving the house to spend time with your friends like you normally would over summer_ . He wasn’t sure how to tell his dad that he couldn’t, that the thought of eating anything made his stomach feel heavy like a bag of rocks sat at the bottom where his hunger usually rumbled, that he couldn’t sleep because he couldn’t turn his brain off long enough to get lost, and when he did, Damian was there-- smiling, laughing, holding his hand, _kissing_ him. Because he didn’t know how his dad would react. Because his dad was raised on a farm where the bulls liked the cows and the roosters liked the hens, and there was nothing else. Because the whole reason he hid himself and Damian that long was because--!

He grunted and tried to sit up. His dad reached out and helped him. “Barry took care of that young lady you tried to save. She’s safe, for now. Bruce put her up at one of his rehabilitation centers.” Exactly what he would have done, then, _if he’d been more competent_ a voice that sounded painfully like Robin said. “We haven’t figured out what those men had on them, but Barry’s gonna run some tests on it.” Silence overtook them, just for the moment, just for a small weasley little second. His body trembled. “Son, the moment you started feeling sick--”

“I should have called you, I know, but Dad--!” He winced. His throat still felt sore, and talking made the nausea that surprisingly hadn’t gone away three times worse. “I-I didn’t think…” He didn’t think he’d needed to, because usually, when he was in trouble, when he was hurt… it wasn’t Dad he was calling for. He grinded his teeth and shut his eyes, because they were burning and it hurt, and the nausea was nothing compared to the utter breaking of his heart in his war-torn chest. Damian. He’d called for Damian.

_No matter what, when the chips are down, he always has my back. And he always takes care of me. I know I can trust him no matter what trouble we find ourselves in._

He whimpered, and his dad’s hand was warm on his back. That still wasn’t what he needed. The hand he needed was miles and miles away, and he hadn’t been able to hold it for the longest time. _Stupid_ , he shook his head, _he was just so stupid_. “Jon.”

“Dad,” He leaned into the touch, into his dad’s chest, and he shut his eyes again and pretended for just one moment that the rest of the world didn’t exist, that Superman and Superboy were infallible, and there was nothing anybody could do to break him-- including his heart.

* * *

Her father’s wine, there was nothing like it.

She didn’t usually partake, but tonight was special, and she felt this particular moon to be an exception. Abele took a sip, let it drip down her throat, thick like the poison she’d never gotten to taste, the poison of a man. Heat pooled in her stomach, something hummed in her and she brushed her legs together to try and quell it. Even so, that made the urge stronger. She wondered how her mother did it every night, took bottles of the stuff and drove herself wild with hallucinations and fantasies she knew Father wasn’t likely to humor. Every sip, every time of the few she sucked a glass dry, it was like a thousand hands, all kinds of skins, all varying in roughness, took her body and stroked it like it belonged to them, to nameless faces, to bodiless hands. The oddest part was that she wanted it, every bit of it, relished in the feeling of being taken so completely.

The realization scared her.

It was what she’d wanted all her life, of course, to belong to somebody, to him, to have him take her as he pleased when he pleased, to be the only woman in his bed lest he grow bored and add more hands, more legs, more corsets. Even then, she would have had to worry for nothing, want for nothing, fear for nothing. She would belong, mind, body, and soul, to him and him alone. That thought was comforting, but belonging to anyone else was terrifying. How was she to know she’d be taken care of? Spoiled? Dressed and propped on an arm like a man’s cane to help move forward. She’d played the part the best she could, but it’d never been enough. The perfect woman, she thought, almost remarkably and humorously, _a woman_ was the one thing her fiance didn’t want.

And she’d been okay with that, despite her future becoming forfeit, despite her life drawing to one moment that would no longer exist, because he was still marrying to Cain. Damian would still be in her life, just under the arm of her dear brother, and that was okay, better than okay. The three of them, together, an unmarried aunt hoisting children on her shoulders and teaching them to fence, baking the way she and Cain used to do when Mother and Father were away, with flour on her nose and dough in the hair of any little one brave enough to dive for it uncooked. She would have been okay with that.

But that wasn’t going to happen, either.

Because he hated her.

Her future had been an open adventure she didn’t want before, an unwritten book she was much too scared to write the first words to, but she thought she’d still have his warm hand over hers, helping her, moving her along when she wasn’t brave enough. She thought their shared pen would be his sword, and he’d cut down her fears as he always had, hold her as he always had, protect her. He was her dear older brother, but she was beginning to see now that she’d only ever been a burden. She’d been his enemy, too, all along.

Mother choked mid-sip, hacked into her glass before she had the mind to hold a napkin to her shiny red lips. Father glanced up from his steak, raising one eyebrow as Mother’s lungs shook, and her throat scratched, as the coughs became increasingly slick until they could see her pull the napkin away. “Dear, are you all right?”

Blood, clear even against the red of her makeup, a thick clot of it and more dripping down. Mother scoffed and folded it. “Some blood, darling, nothing to worry about.” 

Father seemed unfazed. “Perhaps we should get that cough examined.”

Mother shook her head and raised her glass with a smile. “Already have. A minor case of Chondrosarcoma, that’s all.”

“Ah, is that all, then?” It wasn’t a question, it was a dismissal.

Abele took one last bite of her steak and set her fork upon her plate. “Mother, Father? May I be excused?”

It was here, here that she hid away her treasure, where nobody looked. In her wardrobe, at the very back. She brushed away her dresses, the ones with frills at the neck, with flowers at the waist, with layered skirts and petticoats she’d so dearly loved. Behind them was a dress small, cream, and it’d used to be white. But it’d been so long since she’d worn it, and the sleeves were covered in blood, sleeves that used to reach her wrists, sleeves that would now only sit at the bend of her arm. The skirt was unsightly against her skin, used to sit at her ankles and now hardly reached the top of her legs, barely covered the place she’d been told to keep so sacred her whole life, the thing that she’d kept close like a budding flower with petals she’d hoped to gift her husband someday. Those thoughts seemed so silly, there, where her room and her bed were all empty and the night seemed darker than ever.

She stripped, slowly because she’d never before done so without the help of a maid, watched the sewn edges and sleeves and skirts fall from her body, and it felt so uncomfortable, to be without the frills, so be without the curls in her hair. She let them fall, took the dress from her wardrobe and pulled it with some difficulty over her body. She was much too big for it now, she supposed. Fair enough, she’d outgrown that childlike virtue.

* * *

It was with heavy feet that she carried herself through the halls, down to the garden, shivering in her too-small dress. The blood had long since dried, but she could still smell the copper, and it was a small comfort in the freezing night of London. She passed by the stalls, eyed the horses, eyed his horse, the one who would miss him until he came home.

She didn’t need to lift her skirt as she trembled and crossed the wet grass to the paved path, she didn’t need to, and one hand was full, behind her back.

Father had forbade her, and she’d disobeyed him more than once, and she couldn’t begin to tell why.

It could have been the white roses and their beautiful thorns, the drops of blood they’d leave on her fingers when she pricked herself. It could have been the stream in which she’d laid in the slower days, when the water was relaxed, when she could feel fish under her body and her hair pool like a sylph around her as she floated at her back. Just breathed. On the best days, she was Ophelia, with a crown of petals in her hair, carried away by the waves of the river and swept away from the great trouble of life. She knew, now, that she would forever be Ophelia, forever losing her love to madness, forever losing herself chasing after him. Laertes, too, desired that great love from which Ophelia dragged the dagger into her heart and bled, for the same man, the same man…

She settled one foot in the freezing water, gasped and swallowed hard as her body shook with the frigidness, the distinct absence of warmth the waters she’d dipped into so many times had before. In one arm, she reached for the roses, took them in her arm and pulled them close. The pricks of the thorns made this feel normal, made this feel okay, it was familiar, and she was about to embark on the future she’d never thought to have.

For if she was forced to choose between suitor and brother, she’d rather not make the choice at all.

She whimpered and tried to catch herself as she laid back into the cold of the water, one hand full of roses, the other clutching to the old training blade Talia Al Ghul had gifted her in a box with a head so long ago. It was cold, so cold, and she desperately longed for her brother’s warm embrace, the only man she’d ever loved more than the one she’d sought to marry. Tears welled in her eyes, but she couldn’t taste the salt when she still tasted the wine, lust, desire. “But, good my brother, do not, as some ungracious pastors do, show me the steep and thorny way to Heaven.” As always, her hair pooled around her body as she floated, and the roses lifted from her grasp so quietly, like a blanket swept and divided her and the thorns. She took a steadying breath. “Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, himself the primrose path of dalliance treads and recks not his own rede.” She lifted the dagger, and held it to her heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very special thanks to anothertimdrakestan @ https://anothertimdrakestan.tumblr.com/, who beta read this for me when I was feeling the quality wasn't quite there, and I think the story is automatically better for it. Thank you, my friend! ^3^ Jon's part specifically benefited greatly from their beta read! She gets all my love >o<
> 
> Originally Abele's scene was going to end with her in her room with the dagger, but my friend steph @ https://stephasaurus.tumblr.com/ wrote a fanfic!!! About Abele and Cain!!! And I won't share it here, because I think that's for her to share if she wants to, but I just had to include the imagery of white roses, of the stream. I think it was so in-character, and it kills me in such a good way that somebody understands my OCs enough to write about them in a way that pulls at my heartstrings. Give her some love, y'all!
> 
> (She also made a playlist for the story you can find here  
> https://stephasaurus.tumblr.com/post/628110219329912832/if-i-cant-be-everything-to-you-youll-be
> 
> as well as the one I originally made here
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYJ5-g1w2OrmCkGkt8hFESqHTghkD04Sm)
> 
> And now you all know why I named them Cain and Abele :X And The real reason Jon is so deep in denial is revealed! And he still calls for Damian when he's hurt TT_TT It hurt writing that part, believe me, it did. Damian might be warming up to Cain, but he's still keeping that ring of his close to his heart 👀 Bruce is starting to worry it'll be harder to get Damian to drop this than he thought. As usual, I'd love to hear thoughts, theories, ideas :P And constructive criticism! This chapter was... a lot lol and it sets up a lot of things that are coming further on down the road.


	12. AppleSeed

11 Years Before The Wedding

* * *

He would never understand why his father demanded they follow him a handful of countries over to speak with people as rude as the Al Ghuls. Nanda Parbait was hot, and full of sand, and humid as humid came. It made him sick, and he pulled at the satin shirt that clung to his sweating skin like a second layer. “Be good,” his father had  ~~ warned ~~ asked before he and Abele had wandered out the double-wide doors of Ras Al Ghul’s office. He’d be good, all right, couldn’t very well find much to misbehave with in these empty halls. It astounded him how empty the castle was of things to do, how truly boring such a blood-drenched abode could be. Sure there were battleaxes, maces, swords, hanging from walls, easy to access even at his 4’11 height if he so wanted to, but he didn’t want to. He favored knives, small, delicate little things that cut with little force, that required a graceful hand and not a powerful swing. Knives were what his father had taught him to use, were what he knew father used when he  _ went to work _ .

“Abele, calm yourself. You’re going to fall if you run amuck like that.”

A few feet ahead of him, she turned, pink lips pouting as her skipping feet shuffled to a sudden stop, ringlets of hair swinging around in her sweaty face. He would have laughed at her, reminded her that it wasn’t very ladylike to sweat, but she whined when she parted her lips. “But I need to powder my nose!”

“Powder your…? In this heat? What makeup you put on would melt, you silly--”

“No!” Abele whined, brushing her knees inward, together, small hands in fists at her side. “I need to--!” She huffed. “If I stop skipping I’ll really have an accident!”

“Then just--!” He waved an arm to the fences, where just upon the other side there was an open field, full of bushes of flowers, and grass that was green. A reprieve from the arabian desert. “For heaven’s sake, think for once and use the shrubs!”

“Ew, Brother, that’s uncouth--!”

“I will not put up with your whining, Abele, use the bushes or bite your tongue!”

So she did, with another whine, and a bashful glance between him and the green bushes, she bit down on her lips and turned to go relieve herself. “Please be my lookout!”

“What are you worried they’ll see, Abele? Your twenty voluminous skirts?”

He sighed and turned, instead to another door. Tall, green, thick and heavy, he knew, and would be hard to push open. Nevertheless, it was curiosity that had him palming the painted wood. He imagined on the other side, there’d be more weapons, maybe art, since Ras seemed a cultured man. Yes, he imagined he could find rows and rows of busts, portraits, perhaps trophies of the damned and dead he’d slain by hand. The idea was exhilarating-- but not as exhilarating as the sounds he heard at the other side.

Metal hitting metal, swords he had to guess. Training? He knew Ras kept men as assassins, as pets, but he had yet to see them at work. Cain raised an eyebrow. Perhaps it was worth exploring. He pushed the door open a crack, just enough to slide his small torso by, peek in at the action.

Just as he’d thought, a training session. Three or so men in black robes, advancing on a smaller figure shrouded by a hood. A child? A child his age? Maybe. He inched forward, watched as the figure danced on light feet, pushing into the air by his toes. He dodged a near collision, bounded upwards and set his hand at the shoulder of the closest opponent, stood upside down as the hood fell over his head, and he felt his heart s _ kip a beat _ .

A boy, a very, very pretty boy, with green eyes that blazed like the heat of the sun over the arabian sands, tan smooth skin that followed easily with him as he drew his sword and sliced the throat of one adversary open. He pushed them down, used him as a springboard to leap to the next, and there was blood, so much blood, and it made his own boil, made his heart pound as he watched this boy gracefully, easily, slice through one opponent after the next. He was  _ smiling _ , wide like a child with a toy, like the picture of innocence, cocky and so convinced that he’d emerge the victor-- and he was right.

He could read a thousand things in the way he moved, could see pressure on his shoulders, the pressure of an heir, pressure he knew well, pressure that weighed on him and made his shoulder falter, but this boy was different. This boy wore that pressure like a badge and owned it, danced with it on his back and demanded more. He was merciless, and it made his stomach do amazing acrobatics that nearly had his falling over, had him clutching at the skin and gripping it between his trembling fingers. An opponent lunged at him with speed that could take a rabbit, and this boy laughed and cooed “You’ll have to do better than that,” accented with a sword through the chest that dug a crevice between his lungs and left the black robes maroon.

He was in love.

It was at that moment he heard a small gasp, at that moment that he turned and saw Abele had found her way back to his side, saw her big eyes wide and full of glee, saw the way her heart thrummed in tune with his as the blood spilled. So he smiled, and he nodded at the boy, and he warned her: “You must be careful with your heart, Abele. This boy is dangerous, but I suppose you wouldn’t like him if he wasn’t, neh?” And she looked at him and _smiled_ , and a thousand years couldn’t taint the beauty in her.

* * *

13 Days Before The Wedding

* * *

He had to remain cool, unsuspicious, had to seem like he was just some rich kid having coffee with his soon-to-be brother-in-law. Because that’s what Cain thought it was, when he invited Tim out for coffee.  _ “I want to talk about Damian,” _ he’s said over the phone, and Tim still wondered how he’d got his number.  _ “I have some questions I’m afraid he won’t answer.” _

He didn’t know about Dick’s files, that he and Jason were planning a sweep over one of the boats Aiden Barnett was shipping out to Gotham, full of wine, the finest, he’d have the people of Gotham believe. So he needed to be normal, as normal as he could be when Cain’s father was the subject of the investigation, one lead with the intent of ending this engagement before their youngest could swear his life away to another hypothetical crime syndicate and become the very man he’d been growing away from all of his life--! So for Damian, he needed to keep his cool. He needed to be a supportive sibling, a friend, because that’s what Cain was surely expecting of him. He tapped his fingers at the cafe table, blinking away the sunlight that beat over the edge of the umbrella. He would have preferred a seat inside, but Cain appeared to prefer to bask in the sun, be that because of the darkness he suspected that surrounded his family, or an attempt on his part to appear every bit as normal as the Waynes were supposed to believe he was. He supposed he could put up with it, for the mission.

Cain appeared out the glass doors of the small cafe with two cups in his hands, a wide smile as he found their table and b-lined for Tim and his tapping, tapping fingers. “I’m merely curious about my fiance’s past,” he started, setting Tim’s coffee at the table. Dark but not bitter, because he loved the caffeine but he couldn’t stand tasting burn and death on his tongue. He took it and sipped, raising an eyebrow as Cain pulled the chair out across from him and unceremoniously plopped down into it, crossing his legs, leaning forward with his elbows at the edge as he sipped at his…. What was that? A latte? He seemed almost shy, uncomfortable under his gaze. His fingers readjusted along the sleeve of his cup. “You know him as well as I do, you know how he hates to discuss his feelings. He’s cute like that.”

Well, that wasn’t new. The whole family was like that, bottling things up, dealing with things alone, hiding from love and support… Demon Spawn had more reason than any of them to be keeping secrets. “Damian doesn’t like who he used to be. Is it really any surprise he doesn’t want to open up about The League?” Cain blinked, eyes wide as he sputtered and choked on his coffee. He waved one frantic hand.

“Oh, no, no! I’m not talking about his past with The League. I know all there is to know about that.”

“Then what are you asking?”

A blush crossed his cheeks, and it was odd, a little unsettling when his introduction to this guy was his creepy little smug smile, holding Damian’s hand when everyone in that room knew, normally, Damian would never let that happen. It still bothered him.

(Why, why was Damian doing this? Why was he putting up with this snooty, pompous, british jerk who was very palpably a crime lord heir away from their youngest. Damian was not getting married in two weeks, he’d say “I do” over his dead body, and the dead bodies of his brothers, of their father, of every damn vigilante in Gotham.)

Cain smiled, eyes averting left and right, like a cat on a grandfather clock’s face; he could see the tail like a cheshire’s grinning face, twisting, swaying behind him. He would have looked innocent if Tim didn’t know, if Tim wasn’t observing every twitch of his finger at his cup and reading into the smile on his lips. “Uh… this might be a little… personal? But I was wondering about Damian’s….” Tim sipped at his coffee, “...lovers.”

Tim choked. That was hot, sweet coffee down the wrong hole and he was choking. Cain watched with wide eyes, hands waving frantically, unsure of what to do, where to sit, how to help, maybe? Cain offered him a napkin, but he refused it, instead he wiped at his mouth with the back of his wrist and shook his head. “Ugh, uh…. I’m sorry, you wanna know about Damian’s exes?”

Cain’s face grew hotter, redder, and he drew into himself again, clutching the cup to his chest as his eyes glanced around wildly. “I-It’s not that I don’t trust him! It’s just that, well, I guess I just want to understand him more.” His smile turned small, soft, eyes growing dark in the light of the early morning sun, damned be the shade of the umbrella. He stared down into his coffee cup, batted his eyes at the face of milky toffee he could see in the foam, and he looked every bit the picture of a boy in love. “He’s so closed off sometimes, like he’s scared of letting me in. I love him, I want him to know that he’s safe with me, but I can’t be different from the others if I have no idea who the others are!”

Well, as far as he knew, there had been no others. Damian wasn’t like him or Dick, didn’t bring home lays and didn’t talk about having crushes. He didn’t have the normal tells he and Dick did, with pulled collars and noticeable blushes, he kept that to himself, or at least didn’t act like he wanted to talk about it with his brothers. Which, well, he kinda got that. Jason and Dick never let him have any mercy when they found out he was eyeballing a girl, and he certainly wouldn’t have gone easy on the Demon Spawn wither if he’d ever found out, for sure, that he had a girl he was wondering what it felt like to kiss. He’d suspected Damian had an interest in Jon for the longest time, over conversations with Kon, over Jon’s nights spent at the manor, where they laughed and threw pillows and played video games. Sometimes he knew they whispered to each other, and he often wondered if they were the whispers of companions making promises of the future, or the sweet nothings of two who were not yet lovers.

Well, Cain didn’t need to know any of that. He’d get ahead of himself, take advantage of the fact that Damian had never been in a relationship before (presumably). That could put Damian in danger he didn’t even want to consider, bare him for manipulation, though he’d never admit it. So he faked a smile. “Cain, if Damian isn’t telling you about his past, it’s because it doesn’t matter. Damian’s just like that.”  _ Trust me, you’re getting through to him faster than you think _ . He felt a shiver run down his spine at the thought. Damian,  _ starting to actually like this joke _ ? He was sure there was something wrong. There had to be.

Cain laughed into his hand, then rested his chin atop the back of it, leaning forward with that smug, narrow-eyed grin. Like he was sidestepping his sidestep, like that hadn’t gone as he’d planned  _ and it didn’t matter _ . Tim sipped at his coffee, tried to hide the downturn of his lip. “I guess you’re right…”

“Can I ask what brought this on?”

Cain stirred his coffee with one finger, looking almost bored, detached. “No, it was nothing.” His eyes raised but his chin didn’t, and they were looking right at him and his hidden scowl. “So, could you tell me a bit more about this Jon I’ve heard so little about?”

* * *

“Oh, wow!” He smiled to himself as Gordon and Brown fawned over his extended hand, where his engagement ring sat glimmering under the easy light of Wayne Manor. Brown took his hand delicately, laughably like he was fragile, but he knew it was with care for the blue diamond he’d found himself inexplicably drawn to. “This is crazy, you have this guy  _ whipped _ !”

“It’s nothing special.”

Gordon glanced up at him from where his hand extended, raising an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t say that. This boy really likes you, Damian.” Whatever, Gordon wasn’t even supposed to be here, should have been back at her apartment going over her latest case-- but no, she had  _ questions _ , had to ask Father about  _ the wedding _ and  _ the party  _ and about flowers and food and everything else, because apparently, he’d put Gordon in charge of all of that. Whatever, he was thankful his father hadn’t passed the responsibility back to him, or his tasteless wards-- more specifically, Grayson or Drake. They’d have wanted to work more closely with the Barnetts, but Gordon worked better alone, and his new family felt the same way-- he’d gathered. He and Cain hadn’t had to lift a finger, except to put the rings on.

He scoffed. “He wants to get into my pants, that’s different.”

Brown blinked, then threw her head back and laughed, shaking her head all the while. “Damian, dude, you clearly haven’t dated a lot of guys. They’re all like that.” Gordon nodded in agreement, small smile inching over the corner of her face. He was more critical, raising an eyebrow in defiance, because that couldn’t have been true, even if he hadn’t dated… a lot of guys.

“Even Drake?”

“Oh,” Brown grinned, hands at her hips, looking like a cat with a cream-filled lip, “...  _ especially _ Tim.”

Well, that was way more than he needed to know about their relationship. He was going to be sick if he imagined all the things Drake did or did not allegedly do to get Brown’s panties on the floor, and quite frankly the idea of them having sex at all was an image he wasn’t fond of. His face twisted.

Gordon elbowed Brown, who smiled with a not-at-all-sorry sheepish smile. Gordon turned to him, then, and he crossed his arms. A lecture was coming, he could feel it. She leveled him behind her glasses, like a teacher smacking a ruler in one open palm. “Do I have to remind you that you are marrying him, Damian? It only makes sense he wants you to like him.”

He frowned, because of course he knew that, but…

“He knows I can’t give him that.”

Gordon and Brown glanced at each other, faces indecipherable because he dared not read them. It was Brown who spoke next, all trace of that playfulness she’d had in her eyes gone, and he could tell Drake wasn’t the first thing on her mind anymore right then, and he wasn’t sure what was. “Damian… are you sure you want to marry this guy? If you don’t love him…”

That didn’t matter. What mattered was that the Barnetts wanted him, that Cain wanted him. Even if he’d never love the man, he could appreciate him. He’d be happy in his arms, happy as a Barnett. He wasn’t looking to fall in love again, wasn’t sure if he even could, didn’t think he could. That level of intimacy, that kind of pain; he could never withstand it again. How his mother loved his father for years and years with no reciprocation, he couldn’t fathom. That pain of being helplessly in love, not being loved in turn-- it still killed him silently every single day. (He guessed that might have been what he was doing to Cain, but Cain had accepted that, hadn’t he? He’d told him from the start that he’d never fall in love with him. He knew, he knew that he was incapable of being anything more than his husband. So it was not his fault, he knew the risks.) “I must.”

“But--!” Gordon sighed while Brown opened her arms, bowing up on nothing. “You said it yourself, you don’t have to, it’s an arrangement your mom made years ago!”

“I’m not doing this because I’ve been  _ ordered _ to.”

“Then why?” It was Gordon who spoke that time, not accusing, not demanding-- merely  _ curious _ . Scientific, calculating as she ever was. Still, she was loved. By Batman, by every Robin, by the city and its officers, by her father who adored her no matter what. He grimaced.

“It’s what’s best for everyone, including me.”

And he turned on his heel, and he left, because that’s all there was to it.

(He didn’t see the looks Barbara and Stephanie exchanged, the concern in their eyes as they watched him turn his back with that blue diamond ring on his finger.)

* * *

Usually it was so easy to concentrate. Wayne Enterprises wasn’t always easy to run, but it was easy to get lost in, spend hours into the night glossing over, reviewing and denying projects that weren’t beneficial to Gotham. It was a bad habit he’d passed onto his children-- to Dick, to Jason, to Tim… to Damian.

He scowled and flicked over to the next screen with a little more harshness than the touchscreen was used to. Alfred glanced up from the other side of the desk, where he dusted. “Something on your mind, Master Bruce?”

Of course Alfred knew. He probably knew exactly what he was thinking about, too, but he always wanted words and verbalization. It was for the better, of course, but it was still inconvenient. “It’s Damian. We get into a fight, and next thing I know, he’s getting married to somebody Talia picked for him?” They hadn’t talked about that, yet, hadn’t had the time to between wedding preparations and announcements. He’d thought, perhaps, that he’d wait a small while, allow Damian to calm down, give himself some time to think about what to say, how to best show Damian what he’d meant, make things right. But he should have known his children better. Should have known that Damian was reckless and, despite what he’d have everyone believe, led by his heart. He should have known Damian would do something drastic, take things too far, but it’d been only the day after, and he and Damian had fights in the past, and they’d never gone downhill so fast.

Damian had acted out of character, that night. That was why they’d fought. It’d been years since he’d acted so violently, since he’d seen Jason in his punches and Ras in the broken bones. He was distracted, lost to himself, and more than the thugs he’d put in a hospital bed, he was haunted by the possibility his boy would end up in one, too. There was something else going on with him, something that led to this, something that was pushing him more than a fight with his father ever could to swear his life away to a friend of the Al Ghuls.

He sighed. Alfred raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know what to do, Alfred. He shouldn’t go through with this. I’ve lost Robins to death, to time, but never…”

“...to matrimony?” He glared up at Alfred, who smiled cheekily at him and turned to dust the bust of his father.

He sighed, set the tablet down and rubbed at the bridge of his nose, massaging away the pending headache. It seemed like he'd constantly had one since this all started, since his youngest walked through the doors with a stranger at his hip, some evil-eyed strumpet of a man who looked at their family like an opposing set of chess pieces, like he was planning on knocking every single one of them out until their king piece was his. He scowled. That wouldn’t happen. He wouldn’t let it. But the issue wasn’t the other half of the ceremony-- it was Damian. “You know as well as I do that if I urge him to reconsider, it’ll just push him away.”

“Not if you have backup.”

He glanced up just in time to hear Alfred’s smiling voice in greeting. “Master Dick, Miss Koriand’r, I would have greeted you at the door.”

DIck smiled at Alfred as he leaned up against the threshold, arms crossed, file hanging at his limp hand, and he looked so tired, so not like himself. His blue eyes, the staple of Robin that remained in him, that softness, seemed buried under stress. Beside him, at his arm, the usually energetic Kori had lost some of the glow in her skin, and she was smiling, too, but they both looked so dead to the world, like Tim, like him, after they’d closed a case that’d gone on far too long. He glanced down at the file in Dick’s hand, glanced back up with the silent beckoning he’d learned to read well before his years as Robin came to a close.

He grunted. “No metas in Gotham.”

Dick raised the file in the air and grinned, absolutely, completely ignoring him. “You’re gonna wanna see this.”

* * *

He slammed the axe upon the wood, felt his muscles tense and watched the plank split in two upon the stump, one half rolling over and hitting the ground. Jon wiped the sweat from his hairline and took the two pieces to the growing pile. It was about his height, then, but he wasn't planning on stopping anytime soon. He couldn’t. His eyes burned, but he shook his head and grabbed the next victim of a plank.

(Clark watched from the kitchen with a mug filled with coffee that’d long ago lost its fresh morning heat. Lois stood at his side, refilling her own cup with the impending promise of a deadline. “You should go talk to him,” she said, with one hand at his arm, squeezing.

“I don’t know what I would say.”

“Tell him the truth.”)

Jon took the axe, slammed it down. Another two cut rolls for the pile. Well over a thousand planks, and he’d been going since dawn. He should have been proud of himself, but there was still a pit he couldn’t fill and a twist in his gut he couldn’t sooth, so he’d keep going. He’d go until it was as tall as the barn, if he had to. “I think that’s more than enough wood for the Smith’s toolshed, Jon.”

He winced as his dad came up behind him, a smile and a steaming mug, one small pink heart at the center. He greeted him with a weak smile, meant to fool. He was okay, or at least, he had to look it. “Yeah, sorry. I guess I just didn’t notice.” It wasn’t like him to lie, he knew, but he didn’t have a choice. He’d worried Mom and Dad enough over the last few weeks, not eating (he’d tried to force some eggs down his throat this morning, because Mom had made more than enough and he’d seen the looks on their faces as he’d taken a small helping, knew he couldn’t sit there and pick at them instead of eating, again). Knew he hadn’t been getting sleep, that they knew he hadn’t, knew he hadn’t been leaving the house much. He knew he was expending energy he didn’t have, but it was the only thing he could do to keep his mind… kind of clear. Keep his eyes from drifting to that stapled stack of three or so papers with smudged ink and wrinkled pages, names and words that hurt to look at but he couldn’t let it go.

He made a move to pick up another plank, but his dad was taking a seat at the stump before he could, cradling his coffee mug in two big hands. He was still smiling, the way Superman only could, no judgement, and somehow that made it  _ worse _ , so much  _ worse _ , because he knew what was coming, knew they should have had this conversation ages ago. “You’ve been out of it for a few weeks, now.”

He sighed, rubbed roughly at his eyes with his forearm. “I know, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, son, just tell your old dad what’s wrong.”

And just like that, the dam broke. He dropped the axe and pulled at his hair, shut his eyes because they were burning again and he couldn’t, couldn’t. His head was killing him, he couldn’t track one emotion, and the thoughts in his head were so thin but fast and they bounced around like rubber balls and came back to hit him in the stomach, and he couldn’t keep them still, they wouldn't stop, and he just  _ didn’t know what to do anymore _ . “It’s Damian! I messed up, I messed up bad, and now he hates me and he’s probably going to make some other guy his best man and--!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” His dad chuckled, raised one hand and one eyebrow and waited for his insane rambling to stop. “Why don’t you start by telling me what exactly you did?”

Jon blinked, because where did he start? At the manor, where he got into a fight with Damian, where he called him  _ Beloved _ and swore he still loved him? Where he got the wedding invitation in the mail with a name he didn’t know and a name he knew so, painfully, sweetly well that the sugar in the letters dyed his tongue and tore his throat on the way down with words he never said? He winced, turned to the ground, thought of Damian’s heartsick face and felt his heart skip a beat-- knew his dad heard it. “Damian… told me he loved me.”

“Oh.” He blinked, but otherwise seemed, not unphased, but unbothered. “What did you say?”

“I…” he winced, clenched his fist and imagined he could still his own heart if he clenched hard enough. “I told him I’m not gay.”

And despite hearing what to him was a declaration, an acknowledgement of  _ something bad he’d done _ , despite hearing the very words he’d used when he’d  _ broken Damian _ , his dad nodded sagely, like things were starting to make sense when everything felt like it was just coming apart more and more inside. “So that’s why you haven’t wanted to see Iris.”

“I never meant to hurt him,” the memory of his twisted nose, his pursed lips as he tried not to cry, and the sight of Damian crying killed him more than anything in this world or the next. He was so stupid, he never should have let himself give into temptation or curiosity, not when the cost of it was this, was Damian’s heart shattered in his hands, and he couldn’t even piece it back together. He never should have kissed him, never should have let what he thought was  _ want _ go farther until, to Damian, it became  _ need _ . “But he wouldn’t listen to me, and he said all of this stuff about how looking at me makes him sad and--!” He grabbed at his hair, tugged, pulled, had the insane vision of a million kisses with his hands in his hair and his name on his lips, rolling out in adoring hums. But then he remembered that stupid ring and that stranger on one knee and the pink of Damian’s cheeks--! “And now he’s just going to go… get married? To some guy I’ve never even met?”

To that stranger, to that blonde Phantom of the Opera wannabe with green eyes that glowed like bubbling acid and made him sick. To that face with a name he could only spit and not say, to a boy who’d done nothing to him but it felt like he’d palmed something precious, something he didn’t even know drew him by a string at his heart, and crushed it with evil, red pointed claws. Because that was Damian’s face in that photograph, but that was the face Damian had made when they’d been lazing on the couch and he’d teased him about wearing the original Robin briefs, and it used to be his--  _ Damian used to be his _ ! He shook his head because that was the notion he’d been frantically pushing away at, because it wasn’t right and everything was wrong and it was killing him, it was killing him. “Kori said to give him time, but I don’t want to! Every moment that we’ve been fighting, it’s felt like a whole chunk of me is missing, and I can’t just replace it like Damian can!”

And his dad seemed sad, not disappointed, but his brows were furrowed and he held his coffee mug with the heart over his chest and he frowned at him. He smiled at him, tried to, and said “Well, Jon, have you considered that Damian hasn’t replaced you?”

Jon blinked. “What?”

“Even if he is getting married, that doesn’t mean he won’t still need a friend.”

Friend,  _ friend,  _ that was what Damian needed but it wasn’t what Damian wanted. He’d known that, had been trying to be that for him all along, but said aloud, that word felt wrong. He crossed his arms, kicked at the dirt and watched it pick up and blow over the tip of his tennis shoe. “It’s not that simple, Dad. I don’t think he wants anything to do with me anymore.” He paused, closed his eyes and played back the way Damian walked right by him, the way his arm felt in his hand, the way he’d been so close that he’d almost thought he’d go for one last kiss…

“... I told him that he shouldn’t marry this guy, since he’s still not over me, but he said that he had to  _ because _ he loved me.” Because Damian was petty. Because he’d hurt him so now he was doing what the bats did best and getting overdramatic about it, but he was just going to hurt himself! Like a jerk! His dad tilted his head, face scrunching up in confusion.

“That’s not a very good reason to marry someone.”

“I know!” He yelled it, threw his hands in the air because somebody else saw reason, thank Rao! Because he wasn’t crazy and Damian was being difficult and he was gonna hurt himself or somebody else, and nobody else seemed to care! “But he won’t listen to reason! You know Damian! Once he’s set his mind on something, it takes forever to change it!” He kicked up more dirt into the air with a punt that left the ground, sent a huge cloud billowing over and disappearing into the tower of logs and the green, green grass, then crossed his arms and glared at the patch of earth.

Things were silent for a moment, and it made him a little nervous, made Jon’s fingers tip and tap at his arms and he wrinkled his nose at nothing, at everything, at the sick feeling in his stomach that had taken root weeks ago and was spreading like a sick vine through the rest of him. What could his dad say? There was nothing  _ to be _ said, nothing he could do other than watch his best friend walk down the aisle and marry a total stranger, let the person he loved more than anyone make what was quite possibly the worst mistake of his life. And it was his fault.

His dad was silent for a moment, and it might have been quiet contemplation, quiet empathy, a hand on his shoulder despite the few feet between them. He cleared his throat. “Maybe you should stop trying to change his mind about a wedding, and try to change his mind about the person.”

He blinked, and to his surprise…  _ his heart skipped an almost delighted beat. _ He uncrossed his arms, turned slowly to find his dad smiling at him just the same as before. No sadness, no concern, just Dad, eyes filled with love, arms that weren’t spread, but always felt open for hugging, and the possibility felt so real, so uncertain, but he had to know. “...Dad?”

He smiled warmly at Jon, leaned back on the stump and set his mug in the grass. “Son, I knew from the moment Bruce and I introduced you two that you and Damian were going to be partners for life. Bruce would probably say the same thing, if you asked him.” Slowly, he took one step forward, then another, until there was only one measly foot between him and his dad while they had what was probably the scariest conversation he’d ever, ever had with him, but his dad only smiled. “How you two chose to be partners, well, that was up to you. Bruce and I, we’re best friends. We keep each other in line, remind each other what the other side is like, pull each other back from darkness. You’ll face it too, someday. It’s everywhere in our line of work.”

And he knew he was right, knew that facing down crazy super-powered bad guys bent on committing genocide was commonplace in their world, knew that didn’t make it any better when it came to question: what have they done? What punishment do they deserve? Am I fit to pass this judgement? It was easy, so easy, too easy on odd days, to want to cut heads off and let them roll, because those mouths ordered and those hands did so much worse. Those were the times the rest of the team helped, the times where the only thing keeping him from snapping was Robin’s hand over his shoulder, and the only thing keeping Robin from falling off the edge was Superboy’s guiding hand. That’s why they’d always been so good for each other, why their dads had set them up in the first place despite the yelling and the punching and the “I hate you”s and the “glad to hear it”s. That was why they’d been such a good team. Had been. Because they weren’t Robin and Superboy anymore, couldn’t be if they weren’t Damian and Jon anymore. He bit down on his lip.

“But your mom and I, we’re partners, too. We quip at each other, we argue, we tease, and yes,” there was the signature smug, playful Clark Kent grin, “...your mother and I kiss.” Jon stuck his tongue out, and his dad laughed, and it all felt so normal compared to the last few weeks, almost felt like he was ten again and Damian was stopping by any minute with a mission and a cocky Bat Patented grin. Then he nodded and glanced at the house, where his mom still was, where they both knew she was busy tapping away at the computer with the speed only a seasoned reporter and Superman’s wife could keep up with. It was why he loved her, he’d told Jon once or twice, she made him feel not so alone. He followed his dad’s gaze, where he could see Mom in the window with her computer and her steaming mug of coffee. The mug, of course, matched the one Dad set at the ground. “Jon, your mother is my best friend, too, she just also happens to be the woman I love, and because she loved me too, we have you.”

His cheeks dusted pink in embarrassment, and maybe something else. “Why are you telling me all this?”

His dad looked at him, then, really, really looked at him, and not with his x-ray vision, though it made him feel just as bare, like he was standing in an open field with an apple on his heart and a million arrows aiming for his chest, steeped in kryptonite. He still found it in him to meet his dad’s eyes. And for that, his dad’s eyes were honest. “Because I can’t decide for you what kind of partner Damian is, but I can tell you that I think Damian is making a big mistake.”

He stood up, and Jon was all at once reminded by the height that he had some shoes to fill, still, but there was no rush, and there was so much love in the width of his shoulders, and he’d used every bit of it to shield his family and give him every opportunity he could. And he couldn’t shield him this time, but he didn’t have to. He smiled, raised an eyebrow, set a hand at Jon’s shoulder. “Jon, are you really upset because you might not be his  _ Best Man _ ?”

Jon could feel his heart skip more than one delighted beat, and his cheeks grew just as warm as his chest.

* * *

“Aiden Barnett.”

“Barney, if you work for him.” Bruce pawed over the files, spread the thin white pages over his desk and scowled at the magazine clippings with the face of a man he’d never met, but knew well. The man who wanted to call Damian  _ his son _ . Dick leaned over his shoulder, pointed at one page of the file with a poorly-concealed downturn of his lip. “Star and I looked into Aiden Barnett’s wine business, since he’s new money. But, you see, what’s funny is that he doesn’t make enough off of his wine to make his net worth.”

“He doesn’t sell his wine in stores.” Ah, a trail he wouldn’t have thought to check. He lifted the profits page, likely obtained with little legality, if he knew Dick. Just like he’d taught him.

“No, he doesn’t. His product is sold to the wealthy, eccentric, and most importantly, ambiguous.” Dick gestured to another page, a collection of hand-written names-- Dick’s handwriting, messy, probably written fast with his non-dominant hand while the other worked at the computer keys. Some familiar names came up: Falcone, Luthor, Cobblepot, Lord… names that meant trouble, whether the public knew them or not. “Each bottle goes for about four-thousand, which is a hefty sum for a bottle, yeah, but not enough to keep his bankroll when he’s only selling to two handfuls of people.”

“So he’s making the money elsewhere. Let me guess…”  _ Drug dealing _ .

Kori gave a wry smile. “You probably guessed it.” She was at his other shoulder the next moment, grasping at a paper full of what to a civilian would appear to be nonsensical science, a bunch of words that meant something when you understood them. To him, though, it was a chemical breakdown of the wine itself, going by the listing of sulfur, yeast, tannin, sugar…

But what was odd was the inclusion of another chemical, one that made a hefty 15% of the alcohol content. Meteorite, a familiar breed of it, though he couldn’t put his finger on the makeup. “It’s a drug called AppleSeed, and the slums of London started pedaling it only a few months before Aiden Barnett’s business took off.”

“We have no idea what it’s made of-- yet. Barry’s on it. Says the drug’s been popping up around Star City the last few months. Pretty popular with twenty-something’s, middle-aged spouses… You get the regular effects of alcohol with the added effect of a hallucinogenic, but it promotes the same level of sensitivity you’d get from, say, ecstasy.”

Alfred snorted. “Sounds like the 70s.” Dick glanced up and cracked a smile.

“It’s final,” Bruce slammed his hands at the desk, pushed out of his seat. Kori’s eyes widened, and she took a step back, but Dick stayed perfectly still, he could feel his eyes on him as his fingers clenched at the wood. “Damian will not be marrying a Barnett!” Not his boy, not his youngest, who deserved to belong to a healthy family, a happy family. He didn’t need more baggage, to belong to another life of crime and blood when he’d spent so long escaping from it the first ten years of his life. His little boy. He would not allow it.

“Bruce,” Dick started, and he set a hand at his shoulder again, to keep him in line, the way he always had, as the first Robin, as the only Grayson, as his first child. “What you said before still stands, and telling Damian he’s  _ forbidden _ to marry Cain is as good as handing him over to the Barnetts.” As his first child, he’d know that, know it better than any of the rest. Knew that the sins of his father couldn’t be blamed on the boy himself. That’s how Damian would justify it, and that was exactly how Damian would get himself stuck in a cycle. He needed to play the long game, figure out why Damian was doing this in the first place, make things right, even if he could only alleviate the pain, the pressure. He grimaced.

Kori came around the back, wrapped her arm around Dick’s, gave him a look with furrowed brows and sad eyes, filled with empathy in the pinch of her nose. “We don’t even know for sure that Cain is involved. We suspect it, of course, but if we’re bringing this to Damian, we need proof.”

“Luckily,” Dick gave him a warm smile, with just a hint of arrogance. “Jason and Tim are already on it.”

* * *

12 Days Before The Wedding

* * *

He was gross. He felt gross, lazing around on the couch, bored out of his mind, laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling and finding nothing. He rested his hands at his stomach, tried to listen to the comedy show he had on low, but his mind wasn’t there. He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to picture Damian’s face shrouded by the shadows of the sky and the lights of the city, tried to remember the smell of the gas and oil and the perfume wandering club guests sprayed in the gallons. He could feel Damian’s shoulder brushing against his if he just tried, could turn and see him watching over the city with a small smile, his smile, the best smile there was. He reached out to brush his cheek, to touch him, but he hand met nothing, and he opened his eyes.

_ Did he really want to be his Best Man? _

His phone chimed at the coffee table, and he very nearly ignored it like he had been, nearly rolled over and dug his face into the cushions instead of reaching back out to the friends who were asking where he was, if he had plans. He didn’t want to think about the coming week, about how less than two would see him sitting in a church with three feet between him and the boy who’d haunted him for weeks and months, for years if he was honest with himself. Was he being honest with himself? He clicked his tongue, and maybe it was because he was annoyed with himself, or because hearing the “tt” aloud did wonders for his heavy heart.

Jon rolled around, reached for his phone, ready to tell Kathy that he was too busy to go to the summer fair this weekend, ready to tell Gar that he couldn’t make it to the next team meeting, ready to tell his billion and one friends from school that he had a million and one chores to do and he wouldn’t have the time to hang out. He was ready to lie, say he had summer classes, say he’d sprained his foot and couldn’t join his friends to play football at the park. He swiped his phone open and hit the newest notification.

But the text message only gave him an address to an amusement park, a copy of a ticket, and a time-- and the text was from Damian.

His heart skipped a beat, then leaped, and his stomach did flips, and his knees felt weak, and  _ Rao _ , Damian texted him! He wanted to meet him! He wanted to see him! He might have made a sound that a human being (or something close to it) should have been incapable of making, squealed and leapt from the couch, and he didn’t even care that his mom had a “no powers“ rule in the house-- he used some of his super speed to zoom right to the shower.

_ Damian wanted to see him, Damian wanted to talk, _ and he couldn’t stop smiling and he was laughing to himself as the water hit his face and the bubbles escaped his stomach through his throat. He couldn’t keep it in. He was going to see Damian, and he was going to smooth things out between them, whatever he had to do, he’d do it. If it meant getting his best friend back, if it meant figuring out what exactly he’d been feeling the last few weeks, he’d do it. He’ do it all for Damian and more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took so long! I have my first exams coming up, and I'm a little busy just trying to stay on board lol
> 
> Next chapter is also probably going to take awhile, especially since my friend reverzaartandprojects https://reverzaartandprojects.tumblr.com is working on it with me to make something ESPECIALLY amazing!!! We're both very busy right now, so please have patience with us >///< If you want, in the meantime, you can send me an ask https://detectivedamian.tumblr.com/ask , and if I like your idea enough, I might write a little drabble for you! ^_^
> 
> ALSO, my friend Steph https://stephasaurus.tumblr.com is actually writing a story about Cain, following her predictions of how this story will end as well as Abele's suicide. I'm so proud of her and I'm just still reeling from the idea that somebody wants to actually write about my characters, so please go check her story In Another Life out here! https://archiveofourown.org/works/26291407
> 
> ALSO I know that the whole Dick and Bruce scene just had... SO MUCH exposition, and it was really all explaining things, not even EVERYTHING, and just know that I'm probably gonna go back later and make it... more readable lol


	13. Aphrodite's Promise: Fulfilled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note, guys: I'm hosting a DAMIJON SECRET SANTA Event right now! Applications are open until October 31st, all talents are welcome! If you're interested in applying, go here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScv_gMYnoghE5o2sWZXah4hjKN_0BlT1R8AEbGbvjbPtKya4A/viewform
> 
> If you have any questions, feel free to DM me here: https://detectivedamian.tumblr.com
> 
> OR, if you're too shy, send me an anon here: https://damijonsecretsanta.tumblr.com/ask

12 Days Until The Wedding

* * *

It had been sudden, a text he received the night before as he’d fixed himself upon his bed and called for Titus and Alfred (the cat, of course) to join him. No patrol, just supper, alone at the dinner table with Alfred (the butler) standing just off to the side, boiling a pot of water for the Earl Gray tea bags. He should have been unbenched, by now, should have been exploring Gotham with his mask on and his hood pulled over his face to hide the fool he’d become. He hadn’t been benched again, Grayson had reassured him on Father’s behalf, “Bruce just thinks you need some time to yourself, since you’re getting married soon.”

An excuse. A poor one, at that, one Grayson had to have known he’d seen through. Father had been at arm’s length from the wedding preparations the entire duration, a fact of which did not elude him. He’d attended the suit fitting, offered his opinion, where he’d first sought it out as a test, on the venue. A small grunt, if one wondered, and a “Seems nice.” Father must have… thought so little of him that giving his only blood son away was little more than an inconvenience.

It would be nice, he’d thought as he tucked himself under thick layers of duvet, to finally have a family who was proud of him, who showed him off. It would be nice to have a man at his side who loved him, despite it all, despite how he’d pushed him away. Cain’s eyes flashed through his mind, bright, green, focused on him with a snake-like smile. His stomach twisted.

He’d grabbed his phone, just to check, to see if maybe Father requested backup.

No such luck.

Instead, Cain had sent him a rather bestial gif, the moving image of a man’s hand gliding over another’s rear end, the way he’d done a thousand times to Damian in the past. His cheeks lit up, like the ghost of a hand was tracing lines of circles over the tuck of his thigh, resting full-palm against skin before squeezing. He wrinkled his nose and sent Cain a message in return:  _ If you’d like to keep your hands, I suggest redacting that message. _

Cain rolled right over that text, not that he had expected a response of any kind. He’d rolled his eyes and moved on. The next image was a pair of amusement park tickets,  _ 8am, My Love _ ?

Damian clicked his tongue, glanced down at his watch as he approached the wide gates of the park, sparing the guard a bare second glance as he flashed his pass. A date? Did Cain want to take him on another date? How childish compared to their first, to take him to an amusement park.  _ Seems like something-- _ his breath hitched.  _ It seemed like something Jon would do _ .

Jon would want to take him to an amusement park, want to ride the tallest roller coasters, want to share a tall cup of soda with him and push in the creases on the lid. Jon would want to eat cotton candy and ride the ferris wheel with him, and he’d inch his fingers over like he didn’t notice, and he’d slip their pinkies together and squeeze. Because that’s what Jon did the last time they went to an amusement park together, the way all of their secret dates ever went. Jon’s hand in his back pocket, his hand on Jon’s bicep, tugging him down to kiss him behind the dark alleyways where no customers wandered, where Jon could tilt his head and sweep all of his worries under the rug. Because they could never do that out where the world could see, because he didn’t mind his reputation, but Jon had a world of uncertainties he’d never shared, not once. “I’m just not ready yet, D.”

His eyes watered at the thought, so he snarled and squeezed his eyes shut until the burning, burning subsided. None of that mattered anymore. Jon had let go of him, hadn’t he? Perhaps he should consider doing the same…

“Damian! My Love!”

He groaned. He knew that tail-wagging, ears high voice anywhere, knew that cadence. In the direction of the ferris wheel, no less. He turned, expecting to find Cain-- and he did, he did find Cain. Bouncing blonde curls that jutted with every overenthusiastic wave of his arm, green eyes like poison, bright like magic in the early morning sun. Clad in black, from head to toe, long coat heeding his every step, dressed for death like the caped hand on a scythe. He was all smiles, one hand cupped over his mouth to herald the sound of his voice, like he wasn’t annoyingly loud already, other hand waving in full half circles over the broadside of his shoulders. He stood at the water fountain, round and tall, climbing into the heavens with its jets. “Damian!”

No, what concerned him was the boy standing a few feet behind him, shuffling levis into the pavement, hands in his pockets, looking chided and blue. Jon’s big blue eyes glanced up at him behind black-rimmed glasses, the pair Damian loved, the pair he used to see every day as they walked the school halls together. He was stiff in the shoulders, and when their eyes met, his grew nervous, jittery, he glanced from side to side, at the ground, anywhere but him. He hated how his heart sank in his chest, how the softness of his face reminded him what it looked like when he was in the throws of passion-- w _ ith her _ , the way he saw them through the window when he should have been long gone. He was thankful he couldn’t see his hands, because he knew they would bear more unbidden images, ones that would twist the knife he’d already dug into his heart by showing up, here.

And Cain seemed nonethewiser. “Damian, My Love! You finally made it!”

“ _ What is this, Ameli _ ?”

But he already knew what this was. An ambush, a planned attack on Cain’s part. For what purpose? He was unsure. How he even knew Jon existed was up in the air. How he got Jon here was up in the air. He’d need a million hands to juggle all the balls flying, but he kept his only two square at his sides, tucked into the pockets of his black coat. Jon glanced up at the words, nose twitching in confusion, discomfort… as though he’d been struck. Cain’s lips perked up on either end, all innocence, the faux inculpability of a snake. “I’ve heard from a few sources that Jon is your best friend, I figured that it was time I met your Best Man, right?”

Jon’s eyes met his again, and he felt his stomach twist with all the force of the knife’s jagged edge, digging into him. Jon glared right back at him, hands clenching inside his pockets, he could see the way they rolled up under the denim. Damian blinked, slowly. “We can’t stay long,  _ Ameli _ , we have a meeting with the caterer at 6 o’clock.”

Jon swallowed hard. Cain grew closer to him, caught his eyes, stole them away from Jon like he’d stolen most everything else, smiled wider and sauntered pleasantly, charmingly. “I wouldn’t forget, My Love! I called and rescheduled it to 8am tomorrow morning!” He watched as Cain reached out, took his hand in his own, felt the twist in his stomach lessen as he bent forward, pressed a gentle kiss to his fingers. Jon flinched and looked away.

Heat came on sudden, burned at his cheeks as Cain’s warm lips left traces of thin sheen at his knuckles, like he was making love to them. His heart flipped, fell into his stomach and  _ flipped _ . Cain’s eyes, thin and  _ wise _ to what he was doing, flittered up to Damian’s, corner of his lips curling ever so slightly. He could feel his eyebrow twitch. “Fine, then. I’ll humor you. Could you fetch us a map?”

The lust and the vex of Cain’s eyes disappeared in a smoke of unbridled joy. “Anything for you!” Like a dog with prancing paws, Cain straightened himself and all but skipped over to the park’s front gates, a good yard away. Damian watched him go, trying to force his body to chill itself. He could not have this heat under his skin, not here, not now. It was too much, too much for somebody who wasn’t Cain to see. For Jon to see. Why did he have a problem with that? Why was it such a problem to let his...ex… see that another man has the same effect on him he once had? Because Cain wasn’t supposed to. Because Cain was his fiance, nothing more.

And Jon still didn’t feel like an ex.

(They stayed silent for a moment, Damian glancing away, Jon trying horribly to hide that he couldn’t look away.)

Jon kicked the pebbles off the ground. “...So that’s him, huh? The guy you’re gonna marry?”

Damian turned away. “What are you doing here, Kent?”

Jon’s eyes narrowed, wounded. His lips quirked downwards. “I got a text from you telling me to meet you here, but I’m guessing that was your  _ Ameli’s _ doing.” He said it like he was mocking him, mocking the usage of any petname at all, like it was out of character, like Damian hadn’t glanced up at him in the dead of night and whispered  _ Beloved _ to him under millions of stars, laid on grass behind his family home.

Damian scoffed. Of course Cain had done this, had looked through his phone. He’d never deleted their text messages, the pleading voicemails Jon left when he was  _ worried _ , when he was telling him the other titans were  _ worried _ . When he was drunk on his pain, listening to the voicemails over and over again when he was all alone, because he always was, hoping that the message would change, that Jon would be telling him  _ I’m sorry _ , that instead of saying  _ Please call me back _ , he’d hear Jon’s soft, warm voice like a smile say  _ I love you too, I have all along _ .

Maybe Cain found those. His eyebrow twitched. He’d have to have a talk with his fiance about that invasion of privacy, later. “It translates to  _ My Hope _ .”

Jon crossed his arms, and he pouted, like a child! And it almost made him laugh as he settled a glare on him that felt… normal again. Like they were kids, again, like he was upset because he didn’t like Damian’s plan, like he thought it was too dangerous, like he should have called for The Justice League. Like he was still wearing his hoodie with the cape and his holed-up jeans. But this was more adult, his eyes read cut, right at the vein. “You never called me  _ Ameli. _ ”

He glared right back, but he tried to hide the mirrored cut over his chest. “And you were never in love with me, do you really want to play this game, Jonathan?”

Jon frowned at that, but the tension in him slipped away, melting into a bare anxiety, a vulnerability supers didn’t often cave to, didn’t often have. Like he could hurt him if he wanted to. Like he was the one with the knife and not him. He shuffled, awkwardly. “D, I think we need to talk.”

He winced, hoped Jon didn’t see it. He’d said the same thing that same night, the night it all went to hell, the night he broke him, the night he truly became irreparable. Talking was for people like Grayson who could take it, but he wasn’t too prideful to admit, at least to himself, that he couldn’t. He didn’t want to. He glanced away, told his heart to stop its crying, because it’d never changed anything, and it wouldn’t right then. “There’s nothing more to be said.”

Jon took a step toward him, hand at his side rising, for just a moment, like he wanted to reach out. “But there is, there’s a lot that needs to be said, stuff I should have said… awhile ago.” And his eyes said that, too, that he wanted to talk, that he wanted to make things right. And what bothered him was that he wanted that, too. He wanted to talk to him, he wanted things to go back to normal, to slip into what they used to be before Jon told him he wanted him, before he decided he didn’t. He was still in pain, could still feel his lips on his throat the way he could still see hers on Jon’s chest. And the vindictive part of him, The Demon’s Grandson, the part of him that was raised to be righteous and demanded the world fall to his feet, the  _ spoiled brat _ in him wanted to stay angry, to stay hurt, to push Jon and push him more until he broke the same way.

But the Robin in him, the Damian in him, he wanted to let go. He wanted their old normalcy back, to stop holding onto something that was only hurting  _ him,  _ because Jon didn’t love him and that meant he was never going to hurt him as much as he’d been hurt--  _ and did he even want to _ ? Because he loved this boy, this stupid, blue-eyed angel of a boy, who laughed out loud at Beast Boy when he turned into a sloth and fell down the trash chute, the boy who caught him out of the open air when his grappling hook unlatched; he loved him, still, but he wasn’t good enough for Jon, wasn’t good enough for his Father, or his Mother, for anyone, so… it was important to let go, right? Well, he could… try.

He shrugged and shot Jon one of his old smiles, the cocky one that he knew he hated, and it was fake, but that was all he could manage. “You will  _ not  _ be my Best Man.”

Jon winced, but not in pain-- surprise. His nose twitched. “...that’s really not--! I’m trying to apologize to you, you jerk!”

“Well you’re not doing a very good job of it, Hayseed.”

And just like that, the air shifted. The sounds of the amusement park rushed back in, sounded right, sounded less like his heartbeat in his ears. Jon smiled, and shifted, put his hands back in the packets of his ripped blue jeans (Damian bit back the lingering thought of wanting to tear those off of him). His small, cute smile was back, but it didn’t reach his eyes, like there was something still bothering him, like he hadn’t said what he wanted to say, yet. Jon looked him up and down, and he did the same, took in the red overshirt and the green T. Still so lean, still broad in those shoulders (he wanted to wrap his arms around them--  _ stop! _ ). He looked like he’d lost weight, vaguely wondered with passing bitterness if the hussy put him on a diet (she wasn’t a hussy, she wasn’t, he needed to quell his jealous hatred).

Jon looked at the ground, then up at him from under his eyelashes. “I have to ask, D. Do you…” He paused, oddly enough, looked like the words were clawing at him as he tried to get them off his tongue. They didn’t seem to want to leave his chest. Like he didn’t want to say it. Maybe he feared it would start another fight? He steeled himself, ready to either swallow down his irritation or let him have it. Jon blinked slowly, then tilted his chin upwards so he wasn’t turned to the ground anymore, so he could see something unreadable swimming in his eyes. It wasn’t red, wasn’t at all menacing, but it was scared, concerned. He raised an eyebrow, and Jon sighed.

“...do you really love him?”

Damian blinked.

Did he? Did he love Cain? Well, the answer, easily, it was no. He didn’t love Cain. He didn’t spend hours of his nights watching the ceiling fan turn, thinking about him. He didn’t yearn to hear his voice, though he knew it well, and when he fell asleep and dreamed of hands on his body, when he could feel himself gasping and crying out, the open mouth and wandering tongue between his legs is still, without fail,  _ always Jon _ . Maybe the image wouldn’t haunt him if they’d ever done anything below the waist when he could still call Jon his, but what mattered was that Cain’s introduction hadn’t changed any of that at all. When Cain was there, he wanted to hold his hand, lean into him, hear him laugh, see that slimy smile of his that filled him with rage, sometimes… but when Cain was gone, he didn’t miss him, not like that.

Not yet. Damian turned in the direction of the gates, found Cain returning in a light jog, waving one enthusiastic hand in the air with a map that billowed in the wind, coat fluttering behind him like a dog’s wagging tail, perky and curved and fast enough to give you whiplash if you got in its way. “I could.”

He smiled to himself, (didn’t realize the way Jon’s face fell as he said that, the way something small snapped in Jon’s chest, not a blow, but a fired gun-- one that signaled for racers to  _ go _ ).

Cain came around, grabbed Damian’s hand with both of his cold-skinned fingers and tugged him in the direction of the tallest roller coaster the park had to offer. As if it was just the two of them. “My Love, I want to ride this one!”

Damian squeezed the palm brushing against his own, then nodded his head at the open path ahead. “Anything you want, Ameli. Let’s go, Kent.”

(Jon rubbed at the bend of his arm, nodding, following, but never saying a word.)

* * *

They’d been there for a few hours, the sun that had been rising in the East was high in the sky, and Jon should have been feeling the power of it. He noticed, instead, Jon seemed to smile less, talk more but say less. Cain was happy to oblige, rambled on with Jon about nothing the whole thirty minutes they’d been in the first line. Hand on his, tugging like he forgot he was holding it, like it was so natural. (Jon’s eyes kept away from their hands, stayed away from Damian, stayed on Cain and his big wily eyes, the color of stinging nettle). Jon’s eyes stayed as blue as ever, when they weren’t hiding from him, deeper under the artificial lights of the mountainous cave leading to screams and every-present rolling cogs. Blue like concord grapes, and when he stared too long, when Jon’s eyes found his own, they’d grow all the deeper, pools to get lost in ( _ no, stop it _ ), and it made him feel warm, made him tug at the collar of his shirt and stare up at the bright, too bright lights.

He sat square between Jon and Cain as the ride pulled up and into the sky. The roller coaster was 200 feet tall, came with a 90 degree drop that had his stomach dropping. He was used to higher heights, used to the helpless feeling of a fall, but he was used to controlling that drop to faith, used to holding that weightlessness in his hands. He was used to the fall, knew he was restrained, but usually somebody else would catch him when his body gave out.

(Damian didn’t even notice it, that he’d reached out as they dangled listlessly over the bend, as he shut his eyes and winced and tried to even his breathing. He didn’t notice that he’d reached out and grabbed Jon’s hand, and it didn’t register that Jon was quick to lace their fingers together and squeeze, like he could take it all away, like he was promising him  _ I’ll catch you,  _ _ this time _ _ , I’ll catch you. _ )

Cain hadn’t let go of the hand closest to him, and he threw his head back and cackled as the ride went falling down.

* * *

From there they explored the rest of the park. Jon saw cotton candy, and his face lit up, and Cain was the next to spot it and all but scream. He’d dragged Damian over to the small stand and Jon wasn’t but a foot behind them. They bought three cones, despite his adamant refusal to “eat such disgusting amounts of pure sugar”. He was the one paying, Cain insisted, so he had to get one for himself.

“If you don’t eat it, I will.” Jon told him with an easy smile.

So he did, he bought a third cotton candy, and he watched as all three cones spun and spun until they were thick and alight and heavy with pink and blue clouds that smelled like artificial berries. Cain was already reaching out to take his cone when the stand worker was spinning the last of puffing gold, almost giddy with the bounce of his lifting ankles. Jon was just as eager, but he hid it behind the tension in his muscles ( _ almost like he was flexing subconsciously, stop looking _ ). His arm was limp in comparison to theirs, reaching to wrap his hand around the cone. Jon licked at the tips of his fingers, and Cain licked all along the cone even though he was sure there wasn’t anything to be devoured dripping. Cain’s eyes, narrowed and slick with gloss told him he was right.

He ate some of the cotton candy before he handed half off to Cain, tried not to notice how Jon looked quietly disappointed it wasn’t him.

When they stood in line for the next coaster, Cain pinched him on his rear end, and he didn’t bother to slap his hand away. He knew better, and he’d get a scolding later.

(Jon saw it, and his nose twitched upwards at the way Cain’s fingers lingered on the curve of his grey jeans, the way he retracted them and they slid slow and teasing over the space where Damian would part between the cheeks.)

The next ride after that was near the u-turn bend of the park, where they’d surely be backtracking once they reached the end. First Cain’s eyes stuck to the Dippin’ Dots stand, to which he’d gotten a squeeze from their still-joined palms and reaching fingers and a: “We just ate, you child. Show some restraint for the sake of that liver of yours.”

Cain had whined, Jon had snickered, and then the tall blue tower and the unpolished, aged wood of the log flumes came into view, one waterfall of a slide towering over the distance where they could see. Again, Cain’s eyes lit up with guileless, artless joy. “That one! I want to ride that one, My Love!”

“Yes, yes, come on, Kent.”

“So we’re not getting Dippin’ Dots?”

Perhaps he had a… taste in men.

This line was long, an hour long, and trailing twists and turns through more fake caves, more faux wood, hung bear heads on mantles (fake, of course, but it still made him sneer. Cain gushed at the craftsmanship.)

Jon ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “We’ve been waiting  _ forever _ !”

“We’ve been waiting for, maybe, upwards of thirty minutes. That girlfriend of yours must be sore, with that impatience.” (He shouldn’t have said that, it hurt to say, hurt so bad still to think she was getting to see and feel more of Jon than he ever had the chance to).

Jon’s nose twitched, and Cain ( snickered, teased, grinned ) giggled at the pout that came over that All-American face.

The ride itself was short, much too short for the wait, and consisted, in its entirety, of all three of them in a fake row boat, once again with him playing middle fiddle to the giants on either side of him (“We’ll protect you from the splash-zone, D!” Jon said as he took back seat and Cain took front, and he wasn’t about to remind or inform them getting wet was supposed to be the draw of the ride  _ because he didn’t want to get wet _ ), as well as a slow, merry ride through the flat river on rails that guided them, until they reached a drop that sent them bearing down a 70 degree ramp into a pool of water that didn’t look particularly clean.

* * *

And that was where they were, now, standing out front in the blazing summer heat with a tall british man absolutely soaked from head to toe. It was almost funny, and Jon certainly thought so too, seeing such a dignified outfit heavy and darker than black with water that weighed his already-calf-length coat to trail behind him as he walked. His blonde curls were still very ringed, but they were flat against his head, bogged down by dirty water and not at all the voluminous bouncy curls he was used to seeing. The knack shop, gift shop, whatever Jon and his fiance wanted to call it, was in some miracle right around the corner from the log flume.

More faux wood, this time with a roof painted in colors that chipped away with age, a bungalow hovering over racks with shirts for tourists and shelves full of hats, mugs, travel cups with bending straws, even some stuffed animals filled with various creatures he was sure the park called itself home to. Monkeys, giraffes, penguins, gorillas, zebras… but what caught his eye most was the large wall full of towels-- intentional on the park’s part, he was sure. He reached into his back pocket, whipped out his black card and held it between two fingers, out for Cain to take.

“Buy yourself a towel,  _ Ameli _ , and a kitschy shirt if you so please.” He was the last person who wanted his perverse, depraved fiance wandering around the park shirtless. That was like opening Pandora’s Box, would feel like giving him justification for acting like a total fiend.

Jon mumbled “A kitschy shirt…”

Cain’s smile was thin, as were his eyes as he grew closer, stood near chest-to-chest with him as he set one hand at his wrist, let the tips of his fingers slide slowly, languidly, like he was putting on a show, up the frontside of his arm, the smooth skin. He watched as his hand worked upwards, down for just a second, a small pump, until he reached his wrist where his veins were, where he grazed the pulse with his nails and they felt like teeth on him. He masked the way his breath hitched with a glare. Cain took the card from his hand in the next moment, thin smile growing by the inch.

His torso bent sinuously, tip of his tongue slithering out between his pink lips as they brushed against his ear. He bit his own tongue as Cain’s teeth, his wide smile, left a trail of heat on his lobe and the bend. “Look at me, already so wet for you.”

His face bloomed red, and his heart pounding once, twice, hard against his chest, and he could see Jon’s face had turned two shades of pink, too. He shoved Cain by the chest. “Go get a towel, you idiot!” Cain snickered; he left with shoulders brushing one moment, right behind him the next, somewhere lost in the bungalow looking for the towels.

He glanced back at Jon, who was looking pointedly anywhere but him, nose twitching again, lips twisted downwards, shuffling from side to side. And he wasn’t a fool, surely the situation was… odd. It was odd for the both of them. Cain didn’t know Jon was his ex, and Jon had never seen anyone else touch him like this, talk to him like this (not that Jon ever had said such dirty things to him, not that Jon ever wanted to…)

He cleared his throat, and something, somewhere on him caught Jon’s eye. He didn’t care to know what, though he turned his torso away, because it felt like he was looking right at his heart. His eyes turned right to left, not sure what to focus on. “I would have preferred you weren’t around to hear him talk like that. What happens in our bedroom is none of your business, though I suppose he wasn’t aware of your super hearing.” No, a normal boy would have never heard the supple promises Cain whispered, embarrassing him had been his only intention. Well, he’d done a good job of that, certainly, not that he was aware just how well that little stunt had worked.

There was a warmth against his left hand, tugging gently, like asking for permission. He inhaled sharply and tore his hand away like the skin broiled and burned, and it felt like it had. Jon pulled back, wide eyes, both hands raised to either side of his head. He had the presence of mind to look guilty, one corner of his lip twitching upwards in a smile, the other unmasked with what he assumed was awkwardness, or maybe guilt. Jon must have felt so much guilt…

“Sorry! Sorry I just…” His concord eyes glanced between his face and his burning hand. “I wanted to see your ring.”

Oh, right… his ring. The concord ring on his left hand, the ring that told the world that he’d been promised to somebody, that told  _ Jon _ he was wanted by someone, even if it’d never be him. “Tt…”

He glanced away, but held out his hand, fingers pursed for him to get a full view of the ring that looked like the night and felt like the sun, that ring that’d haunted him all this time, the ring he probably should have exchanged for another. Jon reached out again, brushed his fingers just at the edges, slowly, scared he’d pull away again-- the problem was that he almost didn’t want to, that holding Jon’s hand still felt as natural as swinging his sword, driving. Jon cradled his one hand between his both, tips of his fingers brushing the underside of his palms, thumbs running one smooth, almost reverent line into the back of his hand. He swallowed as his heart thumped against his chest, not as hard this time, just… there, like it was acknowledging an old feeling, an old friend, it felt like recognition. Jon bent over a little, the way Cain always did, (made him think he was going to press his lips to his hand, leave fervent kisses on his sun-pressed skin with earnest eyes under black eyelashes  _ stop it _ ).

_ Jon… _ He was staring, staring at the ring not the way others did, with excitement, with zeal and jealousy and astonishment of the size of the rock sitting pretty on his finger-- but he stared at it like it’d haunted him just as it’d haunted himself. Jon’s eyes were dark, and heavy, much too heavy for the light, reassuring air of a super, like he’d spent hours staring at it the way he had, that it’d shown up in his dreams, on the band, in the moonlight, under the sun.

(He remembered, as he stared down at that ring, that ring that showed up on every tabloid, every newspaper, that ring that followed him to the couch and the bed and the breakfast table, he remembered that fiance of his bending down and kissing it, like a king. Why did that hurt? Why did that make his chest heave and his stomach churn like a ball of kryptonite sat at his gut?)

“It’s beautiful.”

His cheeks were starting to feel hot, again, and he vaguely wondered just what Gotham’s temperature was, mid-summer. “I hardly thought it necessary, but Cain was persistent.”

Jon chuckled, low, the way all of the Kents laughed-- warm, jovial, genuine. “You have to be when you’re dealing with Damian Wayne.”

He glared at him, and just like it always was, Jon smiled back. Cheeky, but just as warm as the smile. Until it wasn’t, until that smile fell into a frown, until, for reasons he didn’t know, couldn’t see, couldn’t piece together with evidence he couldn’t find, Jon looked sad. Those eyes, those concord eyes, fell grey in comparison to the ones he knew so well. He tilted his chin, wanted to ask. Jon beat him to it.

“D, listen--”

“Admiring the ring?” His heart stopped for a moment. Jon seemed to leap back, as if he was the one burned this time, hands scattering anywhere, everywhere, until he forced them down to his sides. He watched him fumble with himself as one arm snaked around his back, hand clutching at the belt loop of his pants, tugging him into a boney hip-- well, what he hoped was a boney hip. Cain grinned and grabbed his left hand with his own, showed off their rings despite how mismatched they were. One, plated gold, a diamond roughly the size of a quarter, one on a silver band with a blue diamond as ethereal as the night sky. Jon stood rimrod straight, eyes darting between Cain’s bright, obnoxious smile, his red, burning face, and (the way Cain’s fingers toyed with the denim near the button on Damian’s pants) their hands.

“Damian said he didn’t need one, but he fell in love with that one the moment he saw it!”

Cain’s hair was mussed with the towel that fell over his shoulders, still dripping, but so much more wild-- he swallowed, hard. Cain grinned at him, and he almost wanted to taste the slick of water his tongue swiped over his top lip to wipe away. He knew what he was doing, he always did. Cain did nothing if it was not calculated, and he’d learned as such in the time spent at his side.  _ Look at me, already so wet for you… _

That  _ utter bastard _ .

Something in his stomach twisted as Cain pushed him forward just an inch, the pulled him closer, closer so that one half of his derriere was rubbing against what he knew was a package, one Cain had been near abysmally tenacious about gifting him. He bit his tongue so hard he nearly feared he'd bleed himself dry in the middle of the park, resisting the urge to elbow him in the stomach as hard as was humanly possible. Cain’s canines sparkled as he grinned wider, stinging nettle eyes greener than ever, hungry like a carnivore. “ _ I’m not a girl, Beloved, _ he said to me.  _ I won’t swoon over a diamond ring _ ! Well, swoon he did, and wear a ring he does!”

He rolled his eyes, because Cain was not  _ Beloved _ , he was good, a dream, a hope, but he was not  _ beloved _ . He’d never called him that, never would.

Jon’s face visibly paled, suddenly, and that grey in his eyes grew like a leeching shadow. Still, he laughed, low, and his smile didn’t reach his eyes, and he glanced at the ground as he grabbed at his arm. He seemed hesitant to speak, like the next words could break something if he threw them too hard, too far. “Beloved, huh?”

He raised an eyebrow, but Cain did little other than grin. “I am his fiance, after all!”

Jon laughed again, but same as those concord eyes, it didn’t meet his voice, either. “Yeah, I guess you are…”

From there they circled back around to gather at the next area of the park, a circus-themed extravaganza that appeared to be seasonal, going by the banners hung and strewn over the trees and lightposts.  _ Summer of Superb Chance! _ It made something in his stomach flip, hit a little too close to home.

(He didn’t see the way Jon glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.)

* * *

They were well into the afternoon by the time Cain found the carnival games. Wack-a-mole, Ring Toss, Dime Pitch, a million and one games under colored, striped tents, makeshift and small, pushed together in a colony to make room for all the small attractions. One in particular, the Balloon and Dart Game, caught his eye. Not the fake gun or the kaleidoscopic blend of party plastics and ties, but the stuffed animals fixed upon more faux wood shelves, fluffy, soft, a collection of animals far and wide, again what he assumed the park offered in sights. Penguins, cheetahs, sloths, birds of exotic homes and rescued tigers. He’d found himself slowing as they passed the trigger-end of the guns, eyes set on the teddy bear dressed in a small boy scout uniform, and its label read “Cub Scout”. He cracked a smile at it, nearly turned to Jon to joke  _ are you getting any royalties out of this, Kent _ ?

But he didn’t get the chance. Jon, who had been lugging along behind himself and Cain and their joined pinkies, sprinted forward,  ~~ startled ~~ bumped him so that his latch on Cain’s hand loosened, so that they parted. He blinked, and Jon seemed to be all smiles, all sun, all Super again. He could almost see the ten-year-old in the sweatshirt and dirt, messy black curls everywhere. He tilted his head at the guns, said: “Let’s play, D!”

“Oh no,” He rolled his eyes, because they both knew he’d win this stupid little game, and then he’d go back to pouting like a child… for less mysterious reasons. “You’re not getting me to participate in something so--”

“I’ll play you!” Cain nudged Jon with his hip, bumping him into Damian’s space, making him raise his hands in defense, keep a barrier between him and Jon (and allowed him to discreetly touch his arm, where the muscle flexed almost in response--  _ dammit, Damian, you’re better than this! _ ). Jon blinked as Cain took a gun and rolled it effortlessly between his fingers, impish smiles and long, long fingers. He glanced away. “Winner gifts Damian Al Ghul a new pet.”

And that was ridiculous, ( _ and he wasn’t an Al Ghul, how many times did he have to remind him of that _ ), because he had more than enough animals running around the manor, more than enough that it kept his hands and arms and on the rarer occasion legs busy when he was lonely and needed a furry companion. And it was ridiculous because a stuffed animal was not alive, could not be a pet, and more than anything, Jon wouldn’t compete over--

Jon’s eyes flashed with hereditary bravado, certainty, one eyebrow quirked while his lips twitched up, and he didn’t need his cape to look every bit the part of  _ Superboy _ .

(He wasn’t sure he really saw it, but he could have sworn he saw red in his eyes, like a flash, a glint over concord blue.)

“You’re on.”

And so he stood back, at the side, watching as his fiance and his (ex?) best friend squared their shoulders and took careful aim upon helpless, bouncing balloons. The carnie raised one hand, eyes watching, alight in amusement, as both men aimed, eyes narrowed, before he signaled them to fire.

“Impress me,  _ Ameli _ .”

“Have I ever not?”

Cain looked the picture of a british soldier, long coat thrashing in the recoil as he took shot after shot. No trace of playfulness on that usually coy face of his… it was almost attractive, seeing him so concentrated, so into the game. He bit his lip as Cain licked his own, one fang pointedly catching the soft pink skin, slick. It was odd to think, when he focused on it, that he’d be marrying this tall, dark, licentious man. His eyes, his sculpted body, his accent, the way his lips felt against his ear-- all of it made his stomach flip, made him shamefully willing, despite his protests, willing to do whatever Cain wanted, any which way. And he could see it as simply as one saw the pale skin, knew that depraved fiance of his had a great many ideas about how he wanted him and where, the ways they’d touch, the things he’d say, he’d never been shy about that… and he was starting to think, maybe he’d be willing to give that carnal mind of his a chance to see the light of day.

(But Cain wasn’t who he was looking at right then.)

Jon was fast, worked by years of patrol, years of training, concentration, built on his laser vision and the Point B of his flight. His shoulders were hunched, muscles tense, eyes thick, dark, heated like he’d seen in battle, blazing like red when his blue eyes hit their mark and took the shot. Balloon after balloon popped, loud, like gunshots in Gotham alleys. Every shot made his raven hair bounce, lop and swing about with the recoil. His red overshirt strained against his muscles as he readjusted, took fire, was the fire, was the heat he could feel in his cheeks as balloons went boom. And in contrast his eyes were so blue, so clear, as clear as the S he wore on his chest, as clear as his brightest smile, as blue as the moon and the ring on his finger. No matter how dark they got, he could see them in shadows, beckoning. Jon cracked his neck as he reloaded, and he was so focused, didn’t take one eye off the balloon doomed next. His heart leaped, and he wasn’t sure he could breathe if he tried.

He’d seen those eyes a million times, when he got knocked on his back in the middle of the battlefield in the deadcenter of a war, when Jon would come lunging at the bad guy of the week-- those same eyes, wide with flame, “ _ get your hands off of him! _ ” The million times they’d been back to back in jungles with no way home, surrounded by enemies. Jon’s fists raised in the air, his sword in his hand, together, a team. The heat of a knock-down drag-out fight in an alleyway with thugs and misfits with guns and crowbars, where he’d be exhausted, but he shouldn’t have been because he was so much better than that, but Jon always knew anyway. He touched his shoulder, where Jon used to touch him, where Jon used to smile and say “ _ Let’s go home, D… _ ”

He could feel his face soften as Jon’s hardened with resolve. He wished it wasn’t true, wished he could quiet himself, quiet his thoughts, quiet the yearning that overcame him so greatly at that moment, in light of the valor, the tenacity on Jon’s face… but his heart was singing to him.

And Jon was fast, had good aim, but Cain was precise.

The game was over in a minute flat.

“Player A is the winner!” Cain raised both fists to the air and cheered to himself, and the announcement was so sudden, he found himself jarred by the crowing. Jon set his gun down and leaned against the paneling, hanging his head, folding in on himself. Damian blinked, and suddenly Cain was leaping into his arms, wrapped around his neck, and they were twirling in a small circle. “My Love, I won! Did you see, did you see?”

“Yes! Yes, I saw! Get off of me!” He said that and placed his hands at Cain’s chest, trying with little success (and little conviction) to pry Cain away from his body like prying open a locked car door. Cain had no intention to pull away, and only readjusted with his torso to get a better look at him, laughing and giggling like a smile child the whole way.

Their eyes met, and Cain blinked. “Ah, what is this? Your face is so red, My Love… could it be because I am near?”

“S-Shut up!” He swatted at him.

(Jon glanced up at the two of them from where he slumped over his gun, couldn’t hide the way his cheeks puffed out, how his lips pursed into a pout. He’d lost but he couldn’t accept that, not yet, he wanted to try again. Why? Why did it matter so much that he lost at a carnival game? If Damian knew he was so… torn about that, he’d never let it go, mock him relentlessly until the end of time. But he had to. He had to beat Cain.)

“Hey!” They both blinked as Jon twisted one thumb, jutting at the skee ball machine a few feet away, eyes positively shining in All-American glory. “Best two out of three!”

* * *

And they continued for hours, started as the sun hit the west of the skies, and was still ongoing by the time the sun had disappeared over the artificial mountains of the park, breaking into stars. After the skee balls, of which Cain reign victorious a second time, it was the whac-a-mole, and for some odd reason Cain still won. Jon had glanced around, looked the carnie up and down, eyes flashing red so fast anybody else wouldn’t have seen it. Anybody but him. They played the water gun game, filled balloons with water this time, and Cain’s precision still won over Jon’s quick eye, and after that it was the ring toss, and the Big Six Wheel, and the duck pond and again again, beyond all chance Cain won-- again, and again, and  _ again _ . Jon grew increasingly unsettled, bouncier on his feet, shorter with words, quicker to find the next game, like he had something to prove.

Which was ridiculous, right? Because there was nobody to impress, nobody Jon would want to impress…

Cain, in the meantime, sauntered from game to game like he had nowhere to be, nothing to do, a lazy smile matching the lazy hand that stayed still attached to his pinkie. Jon sprinted like a child overexcited, like an animal released from a cage, unsure what to do with itself, fast, constantly alert, running ahead, making a mess bumping into people. Cain, in contrast, he could hear humming to himself, something familiar, something odd for a man who moved like him, who talked like him. He could match the tune to poetry but the memory eluded him.

_ And about forgiveness, we're both supposed to have exchanged... _

Jon pointed to the Strong Man game, the hammer and the weight and the big glowing circles atop, the game where the numbers climbed high to well over 400 and nobody ever struck beyond 70. “That one!” He’d pointed, demand in his voice, command in the curl of his nose and the twist of his pursed lips. “Let’s play that one next!”

“ _ Jon! _ ” He’d known Jon had wanted to win, but to think he’d have been willing to use Cain’s ignorance against him? It was unlike him.

Cain’s easy smile grew stiff, and he chuckled. “Such a brutish game, don’t you think, My Love? Everyone knows those are rigged…”

Jon set his hands at his hips and snapped his head to the side, challenging eyes gracing Cain up and down. “What’s the matter, City Boy? You scared?”

He gawked. Jon? Trash talking? Trash talking a guy he’d never met? Sure, he mocked him all the time, built a repertoire with him over the years, but Superboy & Robin were very different from Jon Kent & Cain Barnett. Jon was never so callus with strangers, never so rude, it just wasn’t in his farm-raised bones. He was a boy scout, friendly and sweet to a fault, ~~ until you handed him a demon like Damian Al Ghul ~~ , so why? Why was he acting like an ape, pounding at its chest?

Cain’s eye twitched. “Very well, it’ll be one game you win out of a dozen…”

* * *

And Jon did win. Cain raised the hammer and struck the weight only so that the bar raised to 50. Jon stepped up to the plate and all but crushed it moments after with what he could tell was his tapped Krptonian strength, busting the weight all the way up to 500, effectively smashing the competition and eliminating any possibility a following contender had to play the game. The weight was broken, smashed to bits at the bottom, and the carnie backed away so fast, arms raised, terrified. He raised those arms and gestured openly, defensively, to any of the stuffed animals available. Jon had the sense to shoot him a sheepish smile and say “Uh, n-no, that’s okay, sorry about the uh, the game…”

And still, Cain was right, that brought him to one win out of ten, not even a quarter of the crowned victories Cain had claimed through the night. Cain stuck to his side, swinging their joined hands like a giddy child, damn well skipping beside his smooth pace and Jon’s agitated shuffle. The park would close soon, in a matter of fifteen minutes, and he wondered how he’d entered the morning with the intention of doing little more than tasting cake flavors with his fiance. Honey lavender, he’d have thought they’d settle on. He’d find out the next morning, he supposed.

“Are you satisfied with your track record now, Jonathan?”

“Whatever! Those games were totally rigged!”

And he smiled, because they were so much like each other. Bright like the sun, loud when he was quiet, proud and warm when he hid himself away and prayed he’d find forgiveness and a place to call home. But that was where they were different. One of them had offered him that home, that final resting place…

He glanced down at the hand Cain squeezed in his own, where his concord ring sat on his finger, where it would stay. He smiled to himself, then squeezed Cain’s hand, pulled him closer.

They found the way back to the front gates of the park, where the pearly white fences glowed in the moonlight, and the sounds of the roller coaster almost seemed calmer, the voices tired, drowned out in the serenity of the fallen night. The fountain at the front, just beyond the Ferris Wheel, glowed in curves and bands of colors-- blues, pinks, purples, reds, shifting and swaying with the spritz of every jet beyond the polished, set concrete. The three of them paused at the edge of the latest stream, and he sighed. “After that pointless competition of yours, I could use a drink. My throat is dry from  _ your _ constant  _ bickering _ .”

Jon shot three feet ahead of them, eyes as big as his smile. “I’ll get us some soda! Any preferences?”

Root beer was too harsh, coke was too bland, fruity flavors were too sweet and left a bad aftertaste on his tongue, and he’d sworn Jon had known all of that. Maybe, and he’d shifted uncomfortably into himself when he thought it, Jon had already forgotten some things about him. “I’ll have--”

“I know you want cream soda, D, I’m asking him.”

Cain’s eyes lit up, and he tossed Jon his black card the way a trained hobbyist tosses a knife. Jon caught it in even, steady hands, practiced. He’d taught him that. “Something fruity! Like pineapple?” He shot Damian a wink, and he rolled his eyes.

“Got it!” If Jon really did get that, it went right over his head. He turned on his heel and gave a parting wave. “I’ll be right back!” And he ran off, and he watched him the whole damn way.

His curls, his smile, his laugh, the way his name sounded on his lips, the way their arms brushed and how his muscles flexed against his hand, how his eyes sparkled when he was excited, how he skipped around like an overgrown child, how he chided him when he was acting bitter-- it reminded him why he’d fallen in love with him in the first place. The boyscout, the champion of the people, the hero with hope and peace in his heart, plain as day on his face, he still made him weak in the knees, still made him stumble over his words if he wasn’t careful like a surgeon pulling and picking apart every thought before it passed his lips. And that was why Jon could never be his Best Man, because he’d be standing across from Cain, swearing his loyalty and devotion for the rest of his life, and all he’d be able to focus on would be the God sent to save the world and tear him apart, again and again and  _ again _ . No, Jon couldn’t be his Best Man, he’d spend the whole night staring at him.

Cain sighed and leaned back, unlatching for the first time that day to stretch his arms over his head, eyes closed, lips thin and smiling as he felt the cool summer night air of Gotham City sweeping over the park. “So fun!”

He snickered, but it left him sounding like a laugh. “You seem awfully excited about sugar and caffeine.”

“Oh,” Cain let his arms fall, but his smile didn’t. “My mother and father didn’t let Abele and I have fizzy drinks growing up, it was far too unhealthy.” Unhealthy? How… hypocritical of them, considering that whatever was in that wine of theirs was by far worse for the developing body than a few grams of sugar. He’d have to ask Cain about that, maybe, but then again, would it ever be any of his business? Perhaps. Something in him stirred to go looking, to ask, but he wouldn’t dare, not when they were  _ so close _ \-- he cleared his throat.

“Was this day what you’d hoped for when you  _ snooped through my text messages _ ?”

Cain had the peace of mind to look scolded, smile falling as he itched at his cheek for a moment. He glanced away, then back, eyes shifting until he found words. He took one step closer, hands playing at the hems of his coat pockets, long-since dried from the morning log flume ride. Genuinely, Cain smiled again. “I got what I expected and more, My Love.” He glanced down at him, looking up from beneath his hooded eyes, smooth, artful, snakelike. But his tongue didn’t dart out to taste his lips again, lick away dirty water, paint his pink lips rosy, and still, he found his eyes drawn to them. “There’s one thing left, though.”

He remembered himself, glanced back up at Cain’s hooded eyes as he drew closer. “And that would be…?”

Cain smiled, long fingers, gentle fingers, lifted him by the chin, and then they pulled him forward, and his feet moved on their own.

Cain kissed him, tender, slow, languid as he took his bottom lip and sucked at it. Damian’s eyes widened, in surprise, in confusion, but Cain tilted his head and his eyes drifted shut on their own. Despite everything, despite the day, despite the ring on his finger, he wanted to enjoy this. They kissed again, and again, slow, but Cain was not a cautious man and the lips tugging at his own were anything but. Cain’s hand ghosted from his chin to his shoulder, drifting smooth and slow until he was cupping the back of his head. He bit at Damian’s lip, tugged, and he let him because the tongue slipping by his lips made his stomach flip and his spine dip with pleasure. He let Cain take that lead, moaned into his mouth shamelessly as he swallowed every taste, every grace of his tongue, ate it up and committed how he felt in his mouth to memory.

(And it was just then that Jon returned, two sodas in hand, and he was still a few feet away when he came to a sudden stop. Damian, moaning, kissing Cain like a slave submitting to a master, and he knew… that wasn’t right. No, no it wasn’t right at all, because that was how he sounded in his dreams, when he was under him, when he was telling Jon again and again  _ I love you _ , and this wasn’t right, it wasn’t right at all. Because Damian… because Damian  _ wasn't meant to leave his side _ , he wasn’t meant to leave Damian’s, they were supposed to be together forever, a team! No, no this was a bad dream. His hands clutched at the cups, and he struggled to hold himself together, struggled to ground himself when it felt like the world was falling apart around him, when nothing was okay, nothing would be okay again. His eyes were burning, and his breath hitched, and his heart was screaming at him, begging him for something, to stop it, to stop the pain, like kryptonite right through his stomach, jagged edges tearing so wide that the tears wrenched open his heart. No, how did that happen,  _ how had he let that happen _ ? No,  _ no, it was a nightmare _ , it couldn’t be true, what he was seeing couldn’t be--!

Cain’s green eyes slid open, and they were fixed on him, and he expected him to pull away, to realize he’d come back, to apologize and say “Sorry” because anybody else would, it was… right. It was proper, and he was British, right?

But when Cain’s eyes met his, they narrowed, and he bit at Damian’s lip and pulled him closer, and that was how he knew.

He broke the cups in his hands, crushed them and didn’t mean to, didn’t even realize he did as the tears in his eyes started to overflow and pour, as his face grew hot and it became hard to breath, so hard to breath,  _ and it hurt, it hurt so bad. _ )

There was a snapping sound, followed by dripping, small drops of yellow and beige slipping to the stone and seeping into the hardness. He pulled away from Cain, found Jon’s wide eyes and immediately turned his head away. “Jonathan!” Cain’s sickeningly sweet voice came, “what on earth happened?” He squeezed his eyes shut, pressed the back of his hand to his lips and tried to calm himself, calm his pounding heart, calm the strain he could feel beginning in his body, the kind that would need to uncoil with a shower.

“I… I don’t know.” Jon’s answer was strangled, short, elusive. Cain took the towel from his pocket and meandered over to Jon, wiping at his hands.

_ Oh no… _ He really,  _ really _ was starting to like Cain.

(Jon glared at Cain as he swept each drop from his trembling hands, leaving them sticky, disgusting, but not as disgusting as he felt when he saw the smile on Cain’s face.)

* * *

The farm was dark when he came home. Wednesday night? [His parents should have already been asleep, and he’d be alone. Which was fine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eumLiet_pfI).  _ That was fine _ .

He landed at the front door and reached for the handle, but he thought better of it, didn’t want to go inside, yet, didn’t want to remember yet.

So he circled his way out back, found the empty shed where they didn’t keep animals, where they kept tools and hay and sometimes their truck, where even his dad didn’t often come. And he used to hate the barn, hate it because it carried bad memories, but now it felt like the badness was in him, like he was the shadow, the dark thing, the mistake, and he’d made so many. _ He’d made so damn many! _

He grimaced and grabbed at a stack of hay, blindly, throwing it across the yard. Took more and more each time he reached, again tossing madly, wherever felt right, but nothing did,  _ nothing felt right, everything was wrong! _ Everything was so wrong! Everything was bad and it was his fault and  _ this was never how things should have gone! Never _ !

_ Stupid, stupid _ ! He was  _ so stupid _ !

He grabbed more, and more, until eventually the barn was littered in hay, until the pile was no more and he had nothing to throw, so he picked it up off the ground and threw it all again. It scattered like projectile vomit and it made him sick, he made himself sick, took it all in his hands and stomped his feet as he pitched it at the wall. The ball hit, exploded, splattered hay in the creases and slumped like a body to the ground and he wanted to follow it.  _ Stupid, stupid! _ He was so stupid!

“...Jon?” In the distance, he could hear it, hear his dad, hear his mom getting up from bed, the creak of the wood-- and it reminded him of his dreams and he felt like he was going to be sick!

He grimaced. “AH!” Took the hay, as much as his hands and their size could hold, could handle, and slammed in down into the ground, made it shake. He fell to his knees, tried to grab more of it, stuff more and more into his hands, tried to make it feel heavier, throw it harder. If he could just break it, shred every piece, tear it all apart, it would help, maybe, help the hole that was tearing into his heart and ripping him a bit piece by piece. If he just broke every strand, if he just felt it snap like something in him did when he saw  _ his tongue in his mouth _ , he could make it stop, make this pain go away, forget the fountain and the black coat and the green eyes and the sighing and the moaning-- red lips on his, he wanted to forget it all.

His phone started ringing and he hated it, took it out to shut up the tone, make it stop, because he didn’t need the extra noise, he was trying to make his mind shut up, and of course it was her.

Iris, her name and her phone number flashing across the screen.

He thought about her, her hair, how soft it was, how her lips felt on him, all over him, how it felt to hold her, to kiss her, to hold her hand, to feel her lay her head against his chest. He thought about her voice, how she was always talking, how she talked about her family, how she talked about the titans, asked him how they were. He thought about the way she fit in the palm of his hands, how she'd bend when he touched her just like that, how she'd sounded when she came.

And he felt disgusted.

He grinded his teeth, felt his eyes burning and he squeezed them shut because it hurt, everything hurt, he wanted it to stop, he wanted it all to stop, just for a moment, just so he could catch up and breath--!

His teeth parted and he screamed, howled, threw his phone as hard as he could at the wall and watched it shattered into a million pieces, watched the wood of the wall snap, watched it bend and break as her name disappeared in a flash of broken wires, shattered cards, fractured glass, and he couldn’t find it in himself to care one bit.

He blinked, tried to get the tears to stop but they kept coming, gushing out of him, swallowing his face, soaking his cheeks, hitting his hand as he bent over on his hands and knees. He couldn’t do this anymore. He sobbed, choked and whined and screamed to himself as he buried his head into the ground, into the hay, lost between his white-flag hands.

“Jon?” The barn door creaked open but he didn’t look up, didn’t want to, could hardly register the sounds as he grieved and wailed. “Jon!”

(Lois waited at the door with tears in her eyes, a hand over her mouth as her baby broke his own heart, as he sobbed for something lost, something close to him, and they knew what that was, knew all along it had to be him, had to be.)

He tried to force himself further into the hay and the grass and the dirt, tried to force himself away, away from the world, but his dad was still a man with a great many years on him, still pulled him from the barn floor and into his arms, squeezed him against his chest and let him soak his shirt with wails and sobs as he screamed and cried.

“I don't want this anymore! I--I don’t--!”

He didn’t want  _ her _ anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Dancing with your silhouette in the places that we met  
>  Ooh, tryna find you in the moon...  
> ...Did I let go of your hand for a castle made of sand  
> Ooh, that fell into the blue  
> I went following the sun to be alone with everyone  
> Ooh, looking 'round a crowded room...  
> ...I'm broken here tonight and darling no one else can fix me  
> Only you, only you  
> \-- Little Mix, Cheat Codes: Only You_
> 
> I'm so sorry you guys had to wait pretty much a month for this chapter. I hope, sincerely, that the wait was worth it!!!
> 
> At long last, the collab Reverza and I did sees the light of day! I just wanna thank Reverza for how absolutely stunning this piece is, how beautiful, how emotional, I can't thank you enough for collabing with me on this! You have done something so gorgeous and I feel like this scene wouldn't hit half as hard without your art to add the UMF to the knife in the chest! ❤️ I can't wait to collab with you in the future on whatever we end up setting our minds to, whatever it ends up being, just know I'm on board as long as I'm working with you! 😁
> 
> Everyone, please please go give Reverza some love! Here tumblr is here: https://reverzaartandprojects.tumblr.com
> 
> I also want to thank my friend BB for giving this a read for me and maximizing emotional impact, you the VIP, bby ❤️ Her tumblr is here: https://nightwingbb.tumblr.com/
> 
> I WANNA HEAR OPINIONS. Who do you think is gonna win Damian by the end? Who do we WANT to win Damian by the end? What are opinions on character actions, dialogue, especially subtext 👀 this chapter had a lot, and I mean A LOT of subtext and implications that are going to reach to the end of the story. What does everyone think is going to happen? How does everyone feel? 😁


	14. Paris In Distress

12 Days Until The Wedding

* * *

He huddled for warmth in the sheets he’d stripped from his bed, propped up against the frame in the safety of his room.

His bed was safe with no sunken, abused mattress, no memories of tilted chins and fluttering eyelashes and sighs, no call of his name in the back of his mind in throws of breathless bliss. She’d never touched him in his bed, never been in his sheets with her legs spread wide, and he’d never seen her orange hair splayed over his pillows, just the red against the blue of his couch’s arm and cushion. With his back against the frame and his shoulders shrouded in the heavy cotton of his comforter, he could pretend. He could pretend he’d never touched her, that he hadn’t used the family landline to leave a mess of a voicemail for her--  _ he’d been praying that she wouldn’t pick up, even if it was pure cowardice, he knew he wouldn’t have been capable of forming nigh a sentence if she’d heard his broken sobs in real time _ .

(“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he’d said, and he’d meant it, more than she could know, more than was even devoted to her, to the wreckage he’d caused and the shattered debris that ricocheted.)

He swaddled himself and hung his head, sat in the darkness of the bedroom, back turned to the window where the tree swayed and the stars twisted and shined and casted shadows of crooked branches that reached out and clawed at his room, his bed-- at him.

_ (“So what’s your name?”) _

_ (“No, it’s  _ **_Superboy_ ** _ , which means it’s time to forget going to bed on time…  _ **_and be super_ ** _.”) _

He grinded his teeth, squeezed the old blue sheets in his hands, nearly lost control like he had earlier, nearly torn them apart the same way he’d torn the barn, mutilated straw by straw. His fault. All his fault.

_ Damian, moaning, lips open, swallowing, soaking in Cain like a slave submitting to a master, eyes fluttered shut, bent back caving under Cain’s slimy hands… _

Tears came unbidden, again, and he dug his face into his curled knees and let them soak his old blue jeans. There was a knock at his door, once, twice, until his mom peeked her head in, narrowed eyes thick with the same heaviness she carried in her step, compassion that felt like pity, and either way he didn’t deserve it. Her brows were furrowed and he could see her playing it back the way Lois Lane always did, looking for clues in the way they’d carried his deadweight into the house, in the slump of his body as they watched him pick up the phone and wept as he pressed each number that led him to her voicemail. He could hear Damian in the back of his head, “ _ Stop sniveling, quit it, you crybaby. We have work to do _ ”.

His dad was nearby, was listening, he could almost feel him standing by the coffee pot with a brewing batch, because it was going to be a long night-- for them, for him, for  _ Iris _ …

“Oh, sweetie…” She sat heavy at his side, propped up against the bed by her back with one arm over his shoulders, pulling him in, cradling his head, and every part of him wanted to fight her because he didn’t deserve it. “There’ll be other girls, honey. Iris was nice, but I think you did the right thing.”

But it wasn’t about that, not hardly, because that was always going to happen, it had to. He’d have figured it out eventually, because the only eyes he saw in his dreams were green and the only smile he saw was small and curbed to keep from giving answers to questions he didn’t ask, but wanted to. It would have happened when he grew used to seeing him at the edge of a skyrise, zipping across city skylines in his dreams. He would have counted on a firm body under his, with his name on his lips and his ankles wrapped around his hips. It would have happened when he realized that the skin he was pressing to his lips wasn’t scarred and tan, and the words he wanted to hear weren’t “ _ Jon, that’s so good _ ”, but “ _ I won’t break, Kent, if you’re going to do that, do it right _ ”.

He sobbed, and let her pull him in, tuned out the low whistle of the coffee pot as the final drop spilled and his dad reached for three mugs.

“Right or wrong… _ I don’t care anymore _ , Mom, I just… I wanna stop hurting.”

“I know, Jon, I know.” One hand rested at the furrow of his neck, running soothing circles into the pounding head under all the curls, and the other rested at his shoulder, heavy.

* * *

13 Days Until The Wedding

* * *

For once, he wasn’t sure what to expect when he pulled the cowl over his head.

Damian hadn’t been happy about patrol-- rather, his command to refrain for the night-- but it had been necessary, and he’d trusted Nightwing to soften the blow, knew his eldest was good at not lies, but deception. Robin’s punishment had long since been lifted, but for the sake of the other half of him,  _ for the sake of his son,  _ he needed the extra time. Damian seemed to suspect nothing but the usual, that he’d done something to prove himself yet unfit for the field, that he’d still not done his time for the lifetime of medication and hospital bills he’d yielded to that thug, who still was yet to leave the ICU. He’d known something had been bothering Damian, knew he never would have acted so harshly, that he was grown; he’d been hoping for Damian’s confession to come much sooner, but the business with the Barnetts seemed to put those concerns on the backburner. Secrecy had cost him before when it came to his Robins, but if causing another rift between himself and Damian meant saving him from a mistake he’d never come back from, he would drive mountains and seas between them.

Not that he’d get the chance to, he thought, as Red Hood dropped three full sacks of white-tight-packed press-sealed bags on the table. “6 pallets of Appleseed, intercepted at the Gotham docks.”

Red Robin nodded somewhere off to the side, presumably in the direction of the docks. He stood amidst towers of the stuff, pallets on pallets, tall enough to reach the ceiling of the warehouse. Nightwing wandered behind him, whistling low as he tilted his head back to see just how high the towers reached to the smooth glass ceiling. It almost looked like packs of snow, a fortress of it, reaching to the sapphire sky and the pollution of the Gotham night. “Took us awhile to get the information, had to find some thugs that actually knew something, but you can guess who was handing out orders.”

“Aiden Barnett.”

“Ding ding ding!” Red Hood pulled the string of an invisible bell, eyes alight with mirth behind his helmet-- he assumed so, knowing Jason. He chucked a kilo of it to its other side, tilting and sputtering down the small hill he’d dropped on the table. It hit the edge with a puff and fell to the floor. Red Robin clicked his tongue and bent down to pick it up. “We have a winner! Shipped out from Hampshire close to a month ago.”

“Right around the time our green-eyed snake started skulking around Gotham.”

Nightwing rounded back to the table behind Red Robin, eyes narrowed at the tall pile, at the sacks that still held bricks, pouring out the sides. “It’s not proof.”

“Proof Cain is in league with his dad? Maybe not,” Red Robin sighed as he stuck the fallen brick back atop its kingdom. “But proof he doesn’t wanna take the Barnett family name? Absolutely.”

Batman hummed, because as true as that was, it didn’t mean Damian was going to accept it. He knew his boy, knew how Damian thought himself infallible and that all of his plans were good ones. Something had made him decide to marry Cain, and that was what he’d been stuck on, that was why he’d needed proof, to draw Damian back into sense, to make him see what he was marrying into-- for what? The honor of the Al Ghuls? No, Talia would have been unlikely to support such a union, should it be Cain and not his sister. Was he in pursuit of independence? It wouldn’t have been the first time his Robins sought themselves so fervently that they’d grown tangled in a web so contorted and twined he could seldom reach them.

But would the cartel be enough to convince Damian to cut ties, or would he double down against his better judgement? To reveal Aiden’s business was to reveal he’d been opposed to the union from the start, and if it wasn’t enough to convince Damian, it would backfire. They needed more, they needed an ace in their cards, something to nail Damian down before he drew back growling and foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog-- because he knew he would. He scowled, and Red Robin caught his eye with a quirk in his brow-- askance,  _ what are you thinking? _ But he wouldn’t take the bait, not yet.

“What I don’t get,” Hood began, one wide arm gesturing to the loads of AppleSeed, the collection that spanned the walls, “...is how the Demon Brat didn’t check any of this before.” He kicked the leg of the table, made the pyramid tremble. “It wasn’t that hard to find, took Replacement and I the better part of an hour to figure out where to find all this.”

“Well,” Red Robin shrugged, lips twisting in downward, nose twitching, scrunching.”Maybe we were right. Maybe Demon Spawn really likes this guy?”

“Or,” Nightwing sighed, ran a hand through his hair, brows curving, meeting in a tight knit above the bridge of his upturned nose. His hand came down, rubbed between his eyes. “He wasn’t looking.”

Oh. Nightwing knew something, of course he did. He shouldn’t have put it past him-- his oldest, his most capable, most importantly, Damian’s favorite. He should have grilled Dick and Kori the moment they stopped by his office, should have known something had spurred this in his son. “Nightwing. Report.”

He was silent for a moment, contemplative, almost like he was unsure of whether or not to share. But it meant Damian’s safety, it meant his happiness, his home, his life, so he knew he would talk. He had to. Nightwing shuffled from one foot to the ball of the other, hand snaking around to the back of his neck. Hood and Red Robin waited, one with narrowed eyes, the other with patience. “Jon… said something to me and Kori. About Damian.”

Red Robin’s eyes widened, just a fraction, a miniscule bit in the darkness of the warehouse and the overcast light of the moon. “No. Don’t tell me--” Nightwing only glanced at him, shaking and nodding his head. “Oh, hell--!”

“What? What am I missing here? What did Supe’s kid tell you?”

Red Robin’s lips twitched downwards, again, this time with an itch of ire. “I was right. Jon and Damian were a thing.”

“Jon wanted to keep them secret, apparently.” Nightwing’s nose twitched. “Damian’s not thinking about getting married, he’s thinking about getting over Jon.”

“You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me!”

“Language.” If Hood heard him, he ignored him, which wasn’t out of the norm.

“It doesn’t matter, that doesn’t change anything!”

He grimaced beneath his cowl. “Hood, it changes everything.”

“So what? Demon Brat’s got his poor little heart broken, so he marries some rando? Doesn’t matter! Bats, we gotta--”

“No. He won’t listen.”

Hood scoffed, turned from side to side with outstretched arms, open jaw full of bewilderment. “So what, we think he’ll just turn the other cheek if we tell him his loverboy’s hobby is pedaling spliced ecstasy?”

“Hood,” Nightwing started, “You know as well as we do that Damian isn’t rational when he’s  _ hurt _ \--”

“Then let the kid make this mistake! He’ll realize he married into a crime family, get a divorce, and we’re done!”

“Are you serious right now?” Red Robin’s shoulders tensed, hair bristling. “What happens if it’s years before Damian comes to his senses, Hood? What if they build a life together? What if they have kids?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it!”

“Or we avoid it entirely!”

“ _ That’s enough _ !” The room grew silent, thick. Heated eyes narrowed at each other across the table, burning white behind their masks. Brothers had a tendency to feud, especially his boys, he’d known that. He knew that making the call would cause strife, cause impatience, but… Batman sighed. It was for Damian, to save him.To keep him from turning around thirty years down the line, wondering why he’d made a mess of his life, of his potential-- for  _ happiness _ . His boy, his baby, nursing a broken heart all alone, and he knew all too well how that felt. He was young, still impressionable, a child, he needed to remember that. Damian acted like he took action with his mind, but he was like his father and his mother before him, he took action at the govern of his heart. Which meant…

“We don’t know what Damian will do. If what Nightwing’s saying is true, then there’s only one person who can stop this.”

“What?” Red Robin’s and Hood’s eyes widened, Hood’s behind the helmet, and he scoffed as Red Robin baulked.

“B, you can’t be serious! We can’t just let Damian try to marry some drug pin baby and hope Jon stops it!”

“We’re not.”

“Then what, exactly, are you suggesting we do?”

His eyes narrowed under his cowl. “We find a way to get Jon to stop the ceremony.”

“Like…” Red Robin paused, and exchanged tilted heads and quirked brows (he assumed) with Hood. “We… get Jon to fall in love with him? B, that’s--”

“No,” It would have been easy, convincing Jon to lie with all the evidence they had. He’d know it was for the greater good. Slightly harder would be finding Ivy’s formula, concocting a love potion of sorts, using it on Jon to draw Damian out of his haze long enough to shake some sense into him. Those ideas were stupid. Baseless. Evil. Would fall apart and hurt Damian even more, drive him to do something more dangerous, hurt others, hurt himself. No, there was only one way to go about this. “We have to rely on their teamwork. They had years of friendship behind all of this, we have to work off of that.”

“So, what?” Red Robin lifted an eyebrow and a kilo of AppleSeed. “We just take one of these to Jon? Hope he knows what to say to drag Damian out of the Honeymoon Phase?”

“Uh,” Nightwing cleared his throat into his balled fist. “Hate to interrupt, but we have a problem here.” He raised his cellphone, pressing the link on a message sent from Starfire.

A news article, a link from The Daily Planet itself, unreleased to the public eye, but merely pending. The room blinked at the headline, at the thick blue print. Hood laid his helmet to his fist. “Shit.”

* * *

12 Days Until The Wedding

* * *

Cain’s apartment was starting to feel more like a safehouse, a home away from home. That was fine--  _ good _ , really, if he was to marry him in a little over a week.

Marry him. He was going to marry Cain Barnett. In a small chapel overlooking a garden, dozens of people in pews, people he’d never seen or met before. His brothers, his father, Gotham socialites looking to get caught on camera.

Jon.

He drew the towel over his wet hair harsher than necessary, made the towel catch in his nails, made his skin burn. He bit his cheek. Jon was going to be there, was going to be in the stands watching while he swore his life to another man, while he promised to love and cherish another man, and he’d always imagined that it would be his hands he’d be holding, his moonlight eyes, his warm smile, chiding tone. But Cain’s eyes were green, and he liked the way they shined in the dark, and he liked the way Cain’s hands felt on his body, wondered how they’d feel going down, and down, how those eyes would look if he had to glance over his shoulder to see them. The thought gave him chills.

And still he couldn’t imagine standing at the altar with Cain in front of him and Jon behind him. Couldn’t imagine looking Cain in the eye and saying “I promise my love to you forevermore” when the red hot eyes of his best friend were baring down not even a foot away. How was he supposed to tell Cain? “My best friend cannot be my Best Man, I may go to kiss you at the altar and instead attack him.” He’d have to tell him that Jon broke his heart, that he was working to mend it, but then he’d have to admit that he was trying to mend it by  _ marrying him,  _ and considering honesty began to fall apart. He couldn’t, couldn’t risk Cain walking away, couldn’t risk losing the family that would respect him, the husband that would be true to him. He’d keep Jon to himself, tell Cain that Jon is simply too irresponsible to handle it. No, he wouldn’t elaborate.

He crossed the cold checkered black and white bathroom tiles to the door, shaking the towel from his head and dropping it with enervated fingers into the basket by the side. The kitchen was lit by the open wall-to-wall windows, city lights pouring in, reaching and blaring like blurs against the dark room. Cain kept things dark, and he liked that, liked that the only inside light came from the three low-light yellow shades hanging above the island at the center of the kitchen. Modern, chique, not at all haunted by the ghosts of Wayne Manor or the Barnett home. Though the room was quiet, dead still, creeping the edges of life as he stood alone at the bathroom door. He shivered.

The thermostat was too low, he’d have to ask Cain where it was, change it to a more comfortable level. If he was going to spend the night at his abode, he would do so on his terms. “Cain,  _ Ameli _ , we must talk about Jon, but before that, where is your--?” And he heard it. Small, quiet sobs, echoing from the corner of the room, where the bed was. Where Cain was. His heart skipped a beat. “ _ Ameli _ ?”

The sobs grew louder, as though being heard made it harder to hide, as though the pain in his chest became worse when his heartbreak shared the room with a second voice. The corner was dark, city lights low by the bed’s cut of the room, Cain choked. “M...My….” He grew closer, could see Cain’s hunched figure, curled on the bed even in the low light. His eyes were wide, and just as green as ever, but around the rims coated red, swollen skin. His face, it was pale, torn apart with agony, aching heartstrings that wouldn’t seem to mend or soften no matter how many tears he’d shed. He grew closer, one hand extended, slow, purposeful, the way he always approached a Scarecrow victim. He almost wondered if that’s what had happened, if Cain had gone snooping as his fiance was so prone to do and found trouble, but that couldn’t have been. Cain had showered before him, and he hadn’t heard the door open or close, even in the heavy therapeutic pour of the shower.

“Cain…?”

He reached out, and Cain flinched, throwing his phone at the bed, screen black, had been for some time. He trembled, looked anywhere but himself, choking and wet-lung sobbing. “My sister!” He looked to Damian, then, eyes tortured, despaired, devoid of the playful air he always, always seemed to carry about him. “My sister is dead!”

_ What? _ No, that couldn’t have been. They were just there, just visiting her-- she’d seemed fine!

He scrambled, one knee on the bed, hands wild as he searched the sheets in the dark for Cain’s phone. Thin, black, rectangular and bright when he found it and pressed the power button.

_ Daily Planet _

_ Heiress of Wealthy London Family Commits Suicide At Age 18 _

The date of death, of course, scribbled hastily away within blocks of text. They confirmed the name, of course,  _ Abele Barnett _ , and his heart dropped into his stomach. That sweet, small girl, who was once meant to marry him, who was going to be his new sister… she was gone. Left their mortal plain of her own volition, left behind the servants, the horses, the gardens, the family and the empty halls. That small, perfect smile, that gentle voice; and those eyes, Cain’s same color but so much more innocent, so much sweeter despite her thirst for a life he’d have never been able to provide her-- Abele Barnett was dead.

He looked up, found Cain’s eyes filled, soaked with tears, watching him, heavy, begging, like it wasn’t real, like he could tell him that. But he couldn’t, so he climbed further up, set his knees between his spread legs, wrapped his arms around his neck, and pulled his wet face into his chest. Cain’s lips parted with another broken sob, and all he could do was hold him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to point out, here, that AGRey did a fantastic job writing a fic that takes place after last chapter, A Thin Line Between Love and Hate: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27096220
> 
> As the writer of IICBETY, I'm telling you guys, this fic is great. It's an alternate timeline of events, where the amusement park happens, and it sparks a fire in Jon, and he shows Damian just who he really belongs to. If you love this fic, or you're craving a faster satisfying end after last chapter, definitely go read. This one-shot has also spawned a whole new fic taking place after last chapter, What's The Point of Love?: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27214327
> 
> I also wanna thank my beta readers BB and Eric and Kai, I was super nervous about this chapter and they gave me some reassurance lol
> 
> Update: 1/12/21  
> Hey, everyone! I just wanted to let you know-- I am going through a rough time right now. It's okay, even if I'm not feeling okay. I still have plans to finish this story, and I am detaching from tumblr and other discord stressors until I am feeling better and am able to get the next chapter out. I know this is the longest we have ever been without an update. I don't plan to make you all wait another month, but I am unable to promise anything. Just know that I am doing my absolute best to find myself again and get back to a place where I'm happy to write again. Thank you all so much for your continued patience, and your unwavering support. Don't worry, even if it takes awhile, I will finish this story. I will. It is a question of when, not will.


	15. Buried Ophelia, The Wake of Helen

7 Days Until The Wedding

* * *

Gray skies, the distant rumble of a storm yet to come, the promise of heavy rain, thick and seeping through sleek jackets and thin shirts-- that was no less than he’d expected, not there, sitting three feet away from a coffin.

It was her height, no longer than a hundred fifty seven centimeters, and it shined like polished leather despite the murky muted blues of a sky that held onto its tears for a soul that left the world too soon. That was just like her, what he’d known of her, anyway, but the color was all wrong. Black, the color of mourning, the color of death’s robes and the color of blood that had long since dried in stale air and sorrow. She’d have preferred it a sweet shade of pink, the color of her, the color of the familiar feelings he’d born, that she’d worn like a stitched emblem at her sleeve, the color of the light she brought to a family he knew damn well shrouded the brightest edges of her honest soul. He had half the mind to dig her up, visit the graveyard in the dead of night with paintbrushes in hand and give her a mural on smooth wood, the goodbye she deserved, the kind that would have made her smile.

He was brought back to reality only by the hand squeezing his own, blond mop of hair hanging where the crowds of bureaucrats surrounding them couldn’t see. He squeezed back and prayed Cain was having an easier time tuning out the eulogy that meant nothing than he was. Words. Stupid, overcomplicated, meaningless words that were so cold and unfamiliar, that didn’t scratch the surface of who she was. Insult to injury, to him. To Cain. Behind him, his own family sat in guided, predetermined seats, looking pensive. Grayson’s jaw was taut, and Drake beside him seemed lost to thought, but no less rearing at the edge of a fight, fists clenched so wound in his lap that his knuckles bordered on white-- whiter than usual for him, at least. Todd laid back with his arms crossed, tongue darting out to slick his lip, looked like the only thing keeping him from kicking up his feet on the chair in front of him and leaning back on the hind legs of his seat was societal convention. His father looked decidedly Bruce Wayne right then, philanthropist, a man who  _ is so sorry for your loss _ but means the words in their lightest sense, could only truly feel your pain by tapping into the emotions of a man he’d never really been.

Damian glanced sparingly at his left, where the Barnetts sat stock still at the front of the row, watching a man he didn’t know talk minutes about their daughter. The Misses raised a flask to her lips and sipped with eyes that betrayed nothing, next to a man who felt nothing. He looked onward with glazed-over eyes, the way a man awaits the conclusion of a lecture on sales, sights set on rising and falling lines in colors that started to blend together if he stared long enough. He watched the way the leaves in the distance fell from a tree, how they graced the edge of a coffin lying to bed his own blood, and  _ there was nothing there _ . Not a glimmer in his eyes, not a flinch in his cheek or a twitch in his nose, not a single goddamn thing.

It was enough to make him see red. Was that what his father would have looked like, burying him? Composed? Calm and clear when he should have been anything but? When a man buried his child, was he not meant to grieve, to sob, to whimper like the child in the ground, like every shovel of dirt fell upon his shoulders and dragged him to the hole where he’d buried his own flesh and blood? Was he not meant to  _ want _ to lay there with the tied knot at the end of his line? Of course not, not men like his father. Not for children like him. Following Abele’s lead was a thought that fleetingly passed his mind a great many times, long before he’d remembered laying sight on Cain’s face. He’d contemplated it, thought about all of the ways he could with a kunai in one hand and a rope tugging at the other. The only thing that stopped him was a fire at his chest, the primal urge to fight for life that the world had yet to snuff out and the impending sense of dread that… this was what his final resting place would look like.

To take his own life was an act of spite, to show his father, his mother, his brothers, what the world would be like without him in it. He’d mean to break their hearts as they’d broken his own, to leave them with the haunting sentiment that was his own choice. What held him back was the overwhelming fear that he’d look up from Hell where he belonged and find not a tear shed as his family buried him. He feared that Drake would smile, he feared Todd’s absence, Grayson’s reserved, shoulders-back suppression, but more than anything, he feared the eyes Aiden Barnett buried his daughter with would be the same of his father.

He squeezed Cain’s hand back, and thanked whatever god was above that Cain only had to bury one body.

* * *

“Hey, Demon Brat…” His reaching arm over an array of plastic cups came to a sudden halt, and he eyed the beefy hand holding his forearm, not sure if he felt interrupted in the process that was his own senseless grief, or if he felt annoyed at the intrusion of personal space. He shot Todd a look, not the patented Bat Look ™ , but his own disgruntled  _ move your hand or draw back a bloody stump _ look that everybody who’d ever touched Damian outside of battle had come in direct line of. Todd looked unfazed, per usual, and drew back only because he’d gotten his attention… presumably. “You notice anything weird, here?”

He rolled his shoulder, readjusting the arm of his tux. “You mean aside from the lack of remorse?”

Todd rolled his eyes, “No shit.”

Well, in that case he hadn’t the faintest clue what was up his brother’s ass, and he had other things to be doing that weren’t reaffirming the batfamily paranoia shtick they’d all become so accustomed to. Things like mourning the loss of the sweet, innocent life he could have--  _ would have _ \-- called his little sister, things like comforting his fiance, who sat slumped in the same seat with clouds so heavy on the back of his neck that he looked like a man already hung. The only reason he’d left his side at all was to grab him a drink, hope that the fruit punch (no, that was definitely sangria, now that he was perched by it, he could smell as much) wouldn’t quite lift Cain’s spirits, but give him the energy to move that loss always stole. He stole a glance at his fiance, unmoving, staring blankly at the grass that swayed at his feet, crunched under his shoes.

(In time, Abele’s grave would be covered in the stuff, grow from the nutrients of her deteriorating skin, and still it would never be as soft as her smile, as long as her hair. It would be nothing but a sad replacement when it wasn’t a barrier between the door of her coffin and her brother’s searching hands.)

Damian scoffed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You’re telling me you haven’t noticed that flask under Miss Barnett’s skirt?”

“That’s my future mother-in-law, Todd, I’d appreciate it if you refrained from looking up her skirt.”

And his brother sighed, helpless, irritated huffing as he threw his head back and ran a hand down his face, like  _ he _ was the one being difficult when a funeral was hardly the time to pick fights, and  _ a week before the wedding was hardly the time to voice concerns _ . Todd turned back to him, then pleading eyes, and it felt odd seeing that on him, on a face that mainly scowled and snickered and threatened him. It made his skin crawl. “C’mon, kid, you’ve gotta admit this family is super shady.”

A little. Maybe. But that wasn’t Todd’s or anyone else’s concern. So his mother abused her husband’s stock, so Cain was a little odd, little invasive and more than a little perverted. None of that was worse than what awaited him if he stayed where he was. Absent brothers, a father who saw him as a challenge to tackle instead of a son, a neverending mission to prove that he was good, that he could be good, that he could make them all proud, his father proud…

… and Jon.

He clicked his tongue. “We live in the darkness, Todd, a little shade is the least of my concerns.” He grabbed a cup, filled it to the brim with red and damn near let it overflow, then twisted on his heel. Cain was waiting for him, or maybe he wasn’t? Maybe he was too lost to want for anything right then.

He made it two steps before Todd’s hand was on his arm again, pleading eyes, veins popping at the bend of his collarbone. He was tense. Why?

“Kid, I’m tryin’ to protect you, here.”

He wrenched his arm out of Todd’s grasp, again, then straightened himself out the best he could. There were people watching, possible investors in Aiden’s stock, wealthy elites with some hand in the pot that was the Barnett Family stock, and though he wasn’t looking to do the man any favors, he also wasn’t too keen to put any more weight on Cain than there already was. So he said it once, hissed it from behind pursed lips so only Todd could hear him: “ _ The only person here who should have been protected is dead. _ ”

(Jason grimaced and ran both hands through the short strands on his head, mildly tugging when he found it relieved more of the stress. Tim appeared not far behind him, hands blithely in his pockets as he waltzed right up behind him. “That didn’t go well, did it?” His voice flitted almost mockingly, head tilting with every twitch of his lips. They exchanged lashes and barbs under hushed whispers, because the press couldn’t catch a word, and neither could Damian.

“You try talking to someone in denial, Replacement.”

“Oh, I have. Plenty. Maybe Bruce is right, maybe Jon is the only one who can snap him out of it?”)

* * *

The sun was rising, warm but the walls of his bedroom kept him cold, barriers where nothing could get in, four walls where he stayed to himself, laid flat against his bed with the sheets tousled and useless and wet with anything from sweat to tears. He hadn’t slept. One arm sat over his head, and the other splayed over his stomach, holding in the hunger pains that threatened to make him upchuck bile the way he wanted to spill these gross feelings and be rid of them. He’d promised he’d eat, more, and he’d been doing such a good job, but not right then. Not when he closed his eyes and saw yellow. And eyelids fluttering over green. He wouldn’t be able to keep food down if he tried.

Even then, with his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling, all he could do was watch the same scene roll by like a thread of film. Cain, his arm at Damian’s bent back, lips swallowing each other, Damian’s  _ moaning _ , sounds Damian never made for him. He wondered if Damian’s face had looked like that when he’d been the one kissing him, eyes shut tight, brows pinched with concentration, with pleasure. Thinking about it made him want to choke, made his chest clench so hard that his heart felt like it was twisting, trying to break free so it could run, barrel at Damian.

And that was bad enough, but the last few days had taught him his mind would go further, and it did, inevitably. He could see Damian, and he could see Cain, stripped down to slick bare skin and lips that latched everywhere. He could see them tangled in bedsheets, see Damian with his knees pressing into the mattress and his face in a pillow, cheek pressed into the silk with pink skin and a twisting face. He could see Cain over him, hands braced on his hips, holding him down like a goddamn rein. He could see Cain’s lips on Damian’s shoulders, painting trails down the spine of his back, fingers leaving bruises and indentations. He could hear Damian moaning, hear him crying out, and see Cain moving his hips in a rhythm he and Damian had never harmonized. He could see Cain kissing the places he never got to, see the skin Damian had never shown him before, see Cain’s eyes taking in every inch he never got to see. _ Dammit _ , he could hear Damian the way he always sounded in his dreams, see his back arch, see him bite his lip, as he begged,  _ begged _ for Cain not to stop, as he glanced over his pinched shoulders to look at the man who wasn’t him and say  _ I love you _ .

The positions from there were endless, the things he could see Cain doing to him, the noises he could hear left him wide awake and lost in so much pain that it made him physically stumble if he dared try to stand. He wondered how much of it was real, how far Damian had gone to get away from him, from whatever touch was left lingering from their time together. He wondered how Cain was touching him, rough with calloused hands or gentle and reverent-- even worse, if Damian was touching him back.

And then the real images would come to him. Things that had actually happened. Damian’s face when he told him it was over, that he loved Iris,  _ that he didn’t love him _ . The way he’d felt when Damian didn’t show up to Titans meetings for months, when Damian didn’t pick up his phone and he left twenty messages asking him if he was okay. He should have known better. He should have known back then, when it hit him that Damian was disappearing from his life, when instead of Iris, all he could think about was holding his best friend in his arms and burying his head into his shoulder, making a mess of his hair with an outstretched hand. He should have known back when he’d flown all the way to Gotham just to get a word in, when Damian told him that he didn’t want to see him anymore, not for a long time.

_ “Damian, p-please you’re my best friend. I can’t-- I need you. Just don’t do this.” _

He should have known when Damian turned his back on him then, when his heart broke more than Iris could even begin to repair.

_ “You were the reason we didn’t tell people. You didn’t want your family knowing. You initiated things between us. You told me you wanted me. Then I talked about how I loved you. Now you want it to go back to the way it was.” _

His eyes slid shut, and a hot swelling tear made its way down his cheek.

The sun was rising, and sleep would miss him for nights to come.

There was a knock at his door, once, twice, and his dad was peeking his head in. “Hey there, Champ.” That word didn’t fit him right then, that word was bad, he was champion of nothing but stupid heartbroken idiots, but his dad wouldn’t have liked it if he said all of that. He kept it burrowed in his chest, and his dad smiled. “Breakfast’s almost ready--” he made to decline, but his dad continued: “...We need to talk about Cain, son. Your mother caught wind of some news you might wanna hear.”

* * *

The sun was rising on six days before the wedding when he and Cain shuffled through the door into Cain’s apartment. Things were eerily quiet, same as they had been the night he’d made the mistake of checking the news. And everyone could tell him for all the world that it hadn’t been a mistake, that it was good that he’d been there, because Cain would have checked the news himself, but that simply didn’t erase the rage boiling under his skin. It didn’t erase the night he spent cradling Cain’s head, wracked with sobs that he heard in his sleep even when he managed to catch a wink on the plane ride over. It didn’t erase Cain’s dead eyes that stared into the distance, how he’d hardly said a word since they’d met up to catch the flight back to Gotham with his family. ( _ Of course _ , he told himself,  _ of course he wouldn’t want to be around his perfect family, _ right now. It’s not so perfect at the moment and it won’t be ever again). It didn’t erase that Cain had to hear about his sister’s death  _ from a goddamn screen _ instead of his parents.

Cain slid off his shoes and crossed the room to his spacious bed, unkempt, unmade. He was slipping off his shoes when he heard his phone ping.

He sighed, and Cain stripped off his coat. “We should order out, I doubt our jet lag has left us capable of much outside the realm of delivery fees,  _ Ameli _ .” Cain graced him no response, but he hadn’t expected him to. Damian reached for his phone, intending entirely to wipe the message away no matter who or what it was about. Nothing was more important than taking care of his fiance at the moment, and anything short of Darkseid’s return would have to wait.

To his surprise, it was a text from  _ Jon _ , Jon who he hadn’t seen since the amusement park,  _ Jon _ , who he was still mindlessly, hopelessly in love with no matter how much he liked Cain. Despite what he’d promised himself, he tapped the screen to open the message.

_ 6:34pm I heard about Cain’s sister from my mom. How’s he doing? _

And that was just like him. Even if he hated the situation, even if Jon detested that he was getting married in a week, even if he hated what it all was going to mean for him as Robin, for Gotham, for the Titans… he was still Jon, and Jon cared more than anybody he’d ever met. About everyone. About him.

And that was why he was never going to get over him. That was why he needed to forget Jon entirely and throw every fiber of his being at his relationship with Cain. Because he’d keep holding onto like that, keep holding onto hope that Jon would change his mind, keep hurting himself again and again letting him back in when nothing had changed. Maybe he didn’t love Cain, maybe he never would, but he liked him. He didn’t mind the idea of spending his days as Damian Barnett, and Cain had proved him wrong about who he was already, maybe he’d even surprise him by stealing his heart from Jon, or the memory of him, too.

So he smiled, and he closed his eyes and imagined Jon standing in front of him, looking all concerned and puppy-dog-eyed, and he slipped his phone back into his pocket without replying. He was going to leave Jon behind, and that was okay.

“Jon…”

“Hm, did you say something,  _ Ameli _ ?”

“Jon. Last week, after the park, you were saying something about him. That was him texting you just now, right? I saw it on your face...”

That was right, about how he didn’t want Jon to be his best man, but with the sudden death, he wasn’t planning to bother him with the stress of it all. Jon would stay his best man, if that’s who Cain thought he’d picked (in reality, he’d yet to pick a man, he’d considered Grayson, but the thought of putting any more pressure on him than was already there wasn’t something he could stomach). After all, Jon was bound to stick by his side the whole night anyway, once he heard that he was planning to move in with the Barnetts a sea over. Then again, he was starting to consider suggesting a third option, moving elsewhere with just the two of them. They’d let Gertrude visit, maybe, if she played nice, but after today…

He blinked, and waved one hand. “Not important. Now what did you want to eat?”

“Again.”

“Huh?”

And Cain stood stock still at his bedside, hung head standing at full attention for the first time all day. Something eerie hung over him, less like the thunderclouds he’d seen, the storm he heard budding. No, this was a miasma, seeping into the air like an aura, shrouding him as he broke into small, humorless chuckles. Then it became a full blown laugh, head thrown back, jaw unlatched and wide, eyes covered with one gloved hand that latched to his temples and squeezed as his borderline hysterical laughter bubbled up from nowhere.

It sent chills down his spine.

“Again! Hahaha! Again and  _ again _ you keep things from me!” He whipped his head around, blonde curls swinging in a frenzy of their own all over his head, looking each second less like twists and more like the pointed, sharp coils of a rusted wine opener. He reminded him, vaguely, of The Joker, the clown on a night where his father had left him particularly unhinged. “No matter what I do, you hide from me! You keep me at arm’s length! I’m going to be your goddamn  _ husband _ , Damian! Now you tell me who the  _ fuck _ Jon really is to you!”

No,  _ he’d called it _ . He’d never been the type to shrink away, and he wasn’t about to then. He sneered right back, bared his teeth the way he used to when he was ten, when his mother’s teachings were still pressed like carved letters into the back of his mind. “I knew it. You were testing me! I never mentioned Jon in your presence, and my brothers would never openly volunteer his name. You knew about him. How?” That was exactly what the whole amusement park had been about. It wasn’t about meeting his Best Man, it certainly wasn’t about getting to know him, or going on a date, no. It’d never been about that. He’d been looking to see how he’d react to Jon’s presence, how Jon reacted to his. It was about that goddamned  _ paranoia _ , the kind he’d been hoping to get away from for once in his goddamn life by marrying himself off. But birds of a feather flocked for one reason only, and he’d known. He’d known damn well why Cain had gone into his phone to set up some surprise daytrip, because he’d have had the opportunity to back out of it. To make excuses.

No, Cain had heard his name from one little bird or another, and that day he was making a  _ statement _ . To him? To Jon? To who?

And Cain stared at him, arms hanging limply at his sides, head tilted in a way that made the tiny shift of his pupils all the more unnerving. Possessed, a doll weakly tugging at the strings of his own rage. He smiled, and somehow that was worse.

“You said his name. The night I took you to bed, when we stayed at my father’s home.” Back when they’d first arrived? The night he’d gotten a taste of the Barnett Family product? He could still taste the wine on his tongue when he thought about it, still feel the ridiculous sensitivity running in shivers down his spine, how the slightest touch from Cain’s fingers to the skin of his hip sent boiling blood to his stomach. His eyes narrowed, but Cain’s only grew larger, manic, smile wider like there were hooks at the corners of his lips. There was no blood, but he could almost smell it in the air. It made his skin crawl, and he knew what that meant, what it always meant.  _ Bad omens… _

“I was planning on ravishing you, and you were so deliciously receptive. I had you rutting beneath me, Damian, and the sounds you were making were  _ so, so sweet. _ ”

And his heart sank. He didn’t think about running, could only barely cling enough to his body to realize that it was trembling. Nausea, thick and sudden and lodged in his chest like a slimy ball. His hands curled into fists at his sides but he didn’t know what he wanted to do with them, if he could do anything with them. And Cain was still  _ smiling _ and it made him feel  _ sick _ and he didn’t want to hear anymore  _ please stop talking please stop talking please stop-- _

“I had you right where I wanted you, with your legs up in the sky, and you were so, so pretty with face in the pillow… until you begged for Jon.”

“You were… you--?”

“I’m not sure if you thought I was him, or if you didn’t want me like I thought you did, wanted him to make me stop? So I did, I stopped, but I needed to know, My Love, I needed to know who he was.”

_ Cain hardly spared a glance at him over his shoulder, but did not look back at him. “Do not worry, My Love. Nothing happened.” The movement was cold, his tone was indifferent. Lacking the tenderness and the lust that his damned pet name typically carried, but there was also no sarcasm. Cain paused, and for the first time since he’d known him, he turned his head over his shoulder, completely, and fixed him with a scowl. Like a wild dog, snarling, with his teeth on display, with his eyes glowing despite the darkness that resided within, with a nose that looked the opposite of his dainty, small, sweet nose. “I do not think myself an opportunist, My Darling Fiance.” _

And that’s what he had meant, not that he hadn’t… that he hadn’t tried to… but that he  _ wasn’t the type to play rebound _ .

Everything made so much sense, and it felt like his heart was flatlining in his chest, like his lungs took a moment to process the same way his brain did, and he wasn’t sure what he felt because there was just  _ so much to unpack-- _ !

In the next moment, faster than even he was sure he’d done it, he was pressing the edge of his sword to the thick muscle of Cain’s throat, one wrong move away from slicing that goddamn head clean off, and he almost did, certainly wanted to. Every vein in him pulsed with the urge to draw him a slow painful death, drive the tip of his sword through his throat and watch him drop to his knees and gurgle as the blood came spurting out like a broken faucet. He wanted to watch the life leave his eyes, wanted to keep in his line of sight so he knew that it was him who took him down. He wanted to hear his body hit the ground and make a mess, step in the puddle and drag his blood through every inch of his apartment so Aiden knew who did it, who snuffed out the last of the Barnett line. “If you ever,  _ ever  _ touch me again without my permission, or against my will, I will gut you like a  _ goddamn fish _ , do you understand me?”

Cain had been exactly who he thought he was, right from the start. A pathetic, handsy little prick who manipulated and touched and played with his food until he swallowed it whole. He was nothing to him, nothing but another goddamn prized possession same as the walls and walls of trophies his  _ fucking  _ family had collected. He wanted to take the goddamn Gray Son and make him his little fucking husband who waited for him in bed all hours of the day, just to say he could. That was it, wasn’t it? That’s what it was, not a jealous man, but a heartless gutter snake fighting the world for its meal. And yet he still looked down at him, even with his sword to his throat, a bead of blood gripping the edge of his blade, and he was  _ smiling _ at him. The corners of his lips twitched downward only as he spoke, “... who is he to you, Damian?”

He revoked his sword, put several feet of space between himself and Cain. Who he thought he liked. Who wanted only to have his filthy way with him and claim him like he was some type of conquest. And that’s what that feeling was-- familiar. More intimate this time around, because Cain had  _ meant it,  _ Cain had tried to do things to him when he couldn’t say no. And Jon? Jon had just been smitten by a better offer. He scoffed. “He is my best friend, and you don’t need to know another damn thing about him.”

And any clarity in Cain’s eyes vanished in a smaug of rage. “You called him  _ Beloved _ in your text messages,  _ My Love _ !”

Ah, and there lied how Cain had known of his pet-name. Must have been a shock for Jon to hear, he was sure. He shook his head, clicked his tongue. This was ridiculous. Any simpleton would have left already, he could hear Drake crowding him in his mind, telling him to flee to safety. His mother would have killed him already. “That’s none of your business--”

“You fucked him, didn’t you? He has you wrapped around that finger of his and you’re riding it like a--!”

“ _ Jon has never laid a dirty finger on me, which is more than I can say for you! _ ”

“I knew the moment I touched you and you called out to him, I  _ knew _ it! I  _ knew _ you wanted him!”

“ _ Because I love him _ !” And that,  _ that _ was what gave Cain pause. He froze, like a fawn on trembling legs facing down the barrel of a gun. He didn’t stop, though, not for one second. “I love him more than I could ever love anyone else! More than myself! I will never,  _ ever _ marry a filthy goddamn psychopath like you! I’d rather die than let you ever lay another hand on me!”

With that, he took his leave, turned right on his heel and marched for the door, not pausing to pick up his shoes so much as sweep the heels up with two fingers. He could put them on once he hit the lobby, where everybody could see him, where his body would be forced to block out his mind and carry him back to the manor on autopilot. His mind could take the reins when he hit the door to his bedroom, and it could do whatever it wanted with him. Right then, though, right then he wanted to be out the door as fast as possible.

Cain didn’t chase after him, just stared. Pale face against the dark circles under his red eyes. He’d lost sleep, he’d known that much. He’d woken to Cain staring down at him once, twice, three times building up to the funeral. “Tt…” and he’d felt  _ sorry _ for him.

“You do love me, I’ve seen it in your face.”

“I don’t.”

“I love you,” he said nothing. Just continued gathering his coat, sheathing his sword, sticking his extra key back on the kitchen counter closest to the door. Cain still didn’t stop him, hands loose at either side, but he wouldn’t shut up, and he tried not to let a word reach him but he’d never been good at that, at keeping his cool. “In my own way, I do. And you’d do well not to forget, Damian,” he swung open the front door, and he wasn’t sure what possessed him to pause, why he took the moment to open up his ears, let Cain have the last word because it wasn’t something he ever let anybody have, and he’d already given Cain too much. Maybe it was misplaced pity for him, maybe it was whatever lingering endearment he had still clinging to his heart in its final moments still facing the sun.

Cain was silent for a moment, and he felt his eyes boring into his back, almost like he was amused that he’d stayed. Just for the moment. His stomach jolted.  _ Bastard _ .

“I am the only one who ever will.”

Damian was five feet down the hall before the door shut behind him on the way out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks everyone so much for the wait! Know that I still may be a little distant right now. I'm still getting myself together, and I appreciate all of your patience, more than that, I appreciate your support. Please let me know what you all think of today's chapter, it's tying up a lot of loose ends I've been weaving in a very small scarf ;)
> 
> I hope this chapter was well worth the wait. We've only got about three chapters left until the epilogue, so I plan on making them good!


	16. Laertes and Menelaus

~~2 Days Until The Wedding~~ ??? Days Until The Wedding

The evening sun settled west of Wayne Manor, and he’d followed it to the edge of the house where he could see it. He’d nestled into the windowsill, book in one hand, no hand held in the other. And that was perhaps not okay, but what he’d always foreseen. The best predictor of the future, after all, was behavior of the past, and it was justly in his bones and under his skin-- the greed that had lost him retinue in the past. Why had he expected any different?

Because, he reminded himself, holding his heavy hand against the glint of the departing sun, he’d foolishly begun to think his fiance could be trusted.

The plan originally had been… different. Marry for security, so he would never have to worry his heart would be broken ever again. And to be fair to himself, it hadn’t. He’d let himself think, on one display of reservation, that Cain was honest despite his first impressions. Dependable, he thought that very moment had proven that Cain would put him before his own lusts. It was the moment that opened up everything that came after it, his budding appreciation, his understanding of the Barnetts, as weak as it had been, his deep-seeded appetite for the carnal-- something he never had the chance to truly explore with Jon, things had been over too soon, their relationship had been hidden too well. And those things had made him a fool, because that night had been exactly what he’d thought it was. Cain was exactly the man he’d known himself to be marrying; cruel, perverted, demanding, manipulative. That smile on his face might not have been a facade, per say, but every twinkle in his eye had been indicative of something deeper, something worse. And he’d ignored it. To spite his family.

To spite Jon.

And now he was left with the question of whether or not he was still going to go through with it, marry Cain regardless of his transgressions, or break it off officially and return to the life he’d been living before. He twisted the ring on his finger. He could still do it, still take the Barnett family name and accept that though he’d be revered, he’d be living amongst enemies. He could live his life with a husband he would never kiss, touch, acknowledge until he must, go to bed in a high-security room he’d be sure to keep all to himself. He could make some changes, little by little, to their family conventions. He and Cain could have children, that way he so vaguely alluded to the night he’d proposed (hopefully, contact between the two of them would be minimal). He could raise them, protect them, find meaning to his life in the future of his children. He’d love them, properly. Not in the way his mother had loved him, the way Cain loved him, the way the Barnetts loved their children, but the right way. The way Abele had loved, the way he loved.

 _“I love you._ _In my own way, I do. And you’d do well not to forget, Damian, I am the only one who ever will.”_

Maybe that was true. Between his father who thought him a reflection of the man he hated more than anyone, his brothers who had a million better things to do than bother with him, and Jon who had torn his heart open and destroyed his walls to do it, he knew it was. _Jon didn’t love him._ He got that.

The whole point of this sham of an engagement was to get over Jon, leave that beautiful smile, those concord eyes, that laugh that sent his chest in spirals in the past with his stupid broken heart-- so Jon could never hurt him again, so nobody ever could hurt him again. And still, Cain’s presence reminded him how horribly he craved Jon. The excited pull of his hand at the amusement park, the gentle tug of his arm at his waist, his warmth, his boyish charm; it was no wonder, really, that his body might have wanted Cain, but his heart had called to Jon. It was almost… darkly humorous to him. He’d tried to fool himself into thinking he was getting over him, when the reality of it was that every step he took away from Jon made him fall all the deeper in love.

And that was always going to be true, wasn’t it? He could kiss a million men, fall into bed with a dozen blurred faces, but his heart would always, always, always belong to Jon. He’d never get hurt again, because not a single man out there was capable of breaking him the way Jon was. In fact, he was more likely to break them… to do what Jon had avoided doing.

Because that was what Jon had been brave enough to avoid. He loved Iris, wanted her. He probably thought of her whenever his hands had been polite at his waist, probably did his damndest not to be elsewhere on a beach with her under him when he was physically on the floor in Damian’s bedroom with the door closed and locked, stealing light, no-flame kisses between levels of whatever video game he’d chosen for the night. And sure, Jon could have stayed. He could have pushed Iris to the back of his mind, kept his distance from her, forced himself to focus on the boyfriend he already had, who he kept a secret. But that wouldn’t have been fair to either of them, would it?

Jon would have started to hate him, and he would have been stuck in a relationship with a man who wouldn’t have wanted hands to go below waist-level, and he’d feel neglected all the same. If he couldn’t force himself, even before Cain had revealed all his cards, to love him, then Jon couldn’t have forced himself to love him either, right? Jon’s only crime had been breaking his heart, and he’d done it mercifully, even if his timing had been unfortunate. And he’d done his fair share of heart breaking now, too.

How had Abele been so strong? She’d loved him, the old him, perhaps, but him nevertheless, and she’d relinquished that for her brother. Not only that, she’d taken what was given to her with a smile, she’d been happy with her place in his life as his sister-in-law. It wasn’t what she’d wanted, not by a longshot. She’d been reared to become his wife her whole life, and suddenly he’d gone and stripped it all away and she _still loved him anyway_. She’d taken on the new role of being his sister, his friend, a mere supporting role in his life and she’d been satisfied with playing her part. And she did it because the man she loved more than anything was happy.

So he smiled to himself, because he supposed it was his turn to follow her lead. If Jon was happy with Iris, if he loved her, if he laid awake thinking about her the way he laid awake at night thinking about him, he’d be happy too. Sure, watching him love her was going to hurt, supporting him when they had their first fight, talking him off the edge and slapping him upside the head, reminding him how much _he adored her_ was going to tear off the first layer of his heart and hurt the way it felt to be skinned-- but his heart would still be there, and it would still _love Jon_. Being without him was so much worse.

Damian jumped (though if you accused him of that, he’d deny, deny, deny…) as his phone buzzed to life, once, twice, until he received a string of four messages, each as disjointed as the next. Each of them _from Cain_. He clicked his tongue and swiped his phone awake.

_6:45pm: I’m waiting_

_6:45pm: My Love_

The third message was the address he knew well; their wedding venue.

_6:45pm: We should talk before the wedding bells ring, no? Come to me in the dead of night, so that the sun may rise on us two the day of our union._

* * *

He hadn’t eaten much, not really. His mom knew he loved her sweet potato pie, and she’d made plenty of it-- three whole pans, filled with the stuff, and he’d finished about half his plate. On a normal day-- normal month?-- he would have finished the whole pan and been revving to work on the second one. Instead, he was waving a white plate in the place of a flag, wiping it under a kitchen sink set to scorching. He took one of the sponges from the edge as soaked it, squeezed it and rubbed against the ceramic, and tried to ignore his mom’s ever-vigilant eyes. He wished he could say that she didn’t need to worry, but he ran the plate under and washed the suds away, and he saw his own macabre eyes staring back at him.

Damian, on the rare times he’d wax poetic, had always told him his eyes brought out the light in the stars.

He scoffed, to himself mostly, but there was no use stifling anything with his dad around. He could feel his eyes, too, baring into him as he sat at the table with a quarter mug of decaf left. He wanted to tell them he’d be fine, that this would pass just like anything else, but he wasn’t sure it ever would. He had a feeling the ghost on his shoulders would haunt him for the rest of his life, and he was certain this pain wouldn’t dull no matter how many years passed. Because his best friend was getting married, and he wasn’t getting married to _him_.

He inhaled, and the breath stuttered in his chest, and the breath out that followed petered off with an almost sickening whimper. He was such an idiot.

The landline phone boomed to life with a ring, then two, then three. His mom jumped, one hand to her chest before she huffed and rolled her eyes-- at herself? At the phone?

His dad stood and set down his mug. “I’ll get it.”

“Don’t worry about it, Dad.” Jon beat him to it. He wiped his hands on the kitchen towel that coiled around the handle of the sink drawer, then reached for the head. How odd, for somebody to call in the middle of the night. Anybody who had their landline number had the cell number of two if not three of the people occupying their little farm. He hadn’t heard his dad’s cell go off, and though his mom’s was always ringing and therefore was perpetually on mute during dinner hours, the people who would have been trying to reach her at this hour would have gone through his dad before going through the landline that literally nobody on the face of the earth used anymore. Except them. But he was the only one without a working cellphone in the house, which-- if he’d picked up anything from his time as part of a super kid duo-- meant the call was, more likely than not, for him. He took a breath and held the phone to his ear. “This is the Kent Residence, may I ask who’s calling?”

“Jonathan! So glad I could finally reach you!” And his heart dropped two feet in his chest.

“C-Cain?” He could see the ears on his mom’s head perk up. “What are you--?”

He sounded… off. There wasn’t a trace of that cocky, arrogant disposition he’d so blatantly flaunted around the whole day at the park. He sounded like there was a single knife tracing open wounds in his back, voice low and tense and _desperate_. Somehow, that was worse. “It’s a wedding emergency, Jonathan. Damian cannot know.”

What? First of all, he was not in the business of keeping secrets from his best friend, he was already clawing at the remains of their friendship as was. Second of all, there were-- he had to pause and think because he hadn’t been lucid enough to see the sun set or rise for a good few days-- only _two days until the wedding_. Not a good sign. A part of him, a small, evil little jealous part of him, almost smirked at the news. It said that maybe if it was bad enough, the wedding would have to be postponed, that Damian would have more time to rethink, that maybe Cain would mess up somewhere and throw a wrench in the wedding himself. But that wasn’t who he was, who Jon was. He was going to be an adult about this, and he wasn’t going to let his jealousy cloud what was only right. He set his jaw. “What’s the proble--?”

He was interrupted by Cain riddling off an entire address, the address he remembered staining the pink card of the wedding invitation that still sat somewhere in his house, gathering dust. “Meet me tonight. I’ll be waiting.”

“Wait! Cain--!” And in his ear was a loud, obnoxious dial tone. Slowly, he put the phone back on the hook.

“Who was that?”

He shrugged, not quite sure how to answer. Cain Barnett, son of one of the most elusive billionaires in history? Cain Barnett, the man responsible for most if not all of his nightmares, the face he saw every night when he closed his eyes? He settled for: “That was Damian’s fiance? He wants to talk to me in person-- in private.” And what for? What emergency could be so great two days before a wedding when nothing at all should have been left unprepared by this point in the planning? If he knew Barbara Gordon, which he kinda did, the whole thing should have been hook, line, sinker done.

His dad raised an eyebrow while his mom hummed in that reporter-sniffing way. “That sounds suspicious…”

“You don’t think he…?” Oh. Oh wait. He paused, because he wasn’t supposed to say any of that out loud. That sudden mum-ness of his was just going to raise questions, and his mom would pry, and he wasn’t sure he was able to handle that at that precise moment. He turned over his shoulder and found both parents very much in _reporter mode_ ; the only thing missing was his dad’s glasses. _What if he knows I’m Damian’s ex?_

His mom crossed her arms. “I don’t think he, what?”

He laughed and waved a hand, not dismissive so much as it was desperate. “Ah, nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

His dad still watched him with a smile over the rim of his steaming mug, and his mom still sighed. “Fine, fine, keep your secrets, Jon, you know I’ll find out anyway.”

He smiled, and he set a hand at her back and lowered his lips to her cheek with a loud _muah_ . “I know you will.” And with a loud **_boom_ **, he took off to the gardens.

(Lois and Clark looked at each other, concerned yes, but more curious than anything. Trouble wasn’t unfamiliar to their son, anymore, and if it had anything to do with Damian like they were sure it must, then they knew he’d come home safe.

Even so, Lois clicked her tongue and turned back to washing her dishes. “He’s your son, all right.”

Clark chuckled.)

* * *

It made him uncomfortable in all the wrong, worst ways, walking up to the venue. He’d been right, of course. Things had been set up for the wedding already, and he marked each possible hitch off in the back of his mind. Catering sure hadn’t been canceled, not with the way the tables were already set, cloths white and lacey at the ends, hanging over the buffet table and the round ones where seven chairs sat neatly in little bunches. The flowers weren’t the issue, not at all. The garden itself was laced with all kinds, in the trees and the bushes, all manners of reds and blues and oranges. White roses, red, bushes of baby’s breath, red and white and pink carnations. Each table had a neat little bouquet at the center, and he wondered what each flower meant, wondered who picked them out, Damian or Cain. Had Damian sat there for hours, turning through pages to find what he liked the most? Did he throw himself into finding what expressed him, his feelings, the thoughts he couldn’t put into words? The thought was funny, enough to warrant a small huff of laughter at the back of his throat, but it was in character, no matter. Damian was a person who expressed himself visually, and he could only imagine that it would show in the way he planned what should have been the happiest day of his life.

Then again, he could also picture Damian scoffing at the idea of caring about what _flowers_ were at his wedding, and that drew a small smile. So. Very. Damian.

Lights were strung from trees to tent posts, bright and small and round, like fairies dancing over the dining area. The stage floor was already settled, light wood over green, green grass, and though music wasn’t playing, he could so easily picture the floor filled with their friends, their family. He could see Bruce Wayne on the floor with a mysterious woman (no doubt that Selena person Damian lamented about all the time) in his arms, smiling in that way only his own dad and Diana Prince herself had ever seen. He could see Tim and Stephanie breaking out weird dance moves that would get them grounded if the paparazzi were around, see Dick joining them, see Kori clapping along to the music. It was a quiet little spot for a large group of people. It kind of fit Damian.

It made him queasy.

He jerked right, found Cain approaching-- _in full wedding tux_ \-- slow clapping with a warm smile on his face. Something about the sight ironically settled him. This was a Cain he could deal with, no matter how badly he wanted to punch him. A manic groom-to-be was a very different animal from a smiling, manipulative bastard who-- _no_ , he had to stop that. “Jonathan! You got here so fast! I’m impressed!”

“I’m uh,” He rubbed at his arm, shuffled from one foot to another and tried not to pay attention to the plaid overshirt he was wearing, “...starting to think I missed the memo about the dress code.” He tried to piece together _why_ Cain might have been wearing his tux 48 hours prematurely, and maybe he wasn’t the detective Damian was, but the fact that not a single explanation came to mind that made feasible sense was a testament to how his skin was crawling.

Cain threw his head back and held lightly at his stomach with jolly laughter. “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m feeling a little overdressed, myself.” He recovered fast enough, drew one hand to gesture to the party that had yet to start, to the stage lit up in floodlights, to the stage with no occupant but the DJ’s set-up. Cain glanced it all over with a wide smile on his proud, spectral face. “What do you think? This is where we’re going to tie the knot, as you’d put it. Romantic, neh?”

Right. Had he called him there just to gloat? No, there was something else. That smile wasn’t as mischievous as it had been at the park. There was something hidden under it, something sad, and as much as he hated him for opening a box in him that he couldn’t seem to close, he was nothing if not his father’s son. He was going to try to fix it. “Yeah… for sure,” he vaguely nodded to the stage. “So, why’d you call me out here?” And Cain blinked, like he’d been taken out of some reverie, lips pursed in confusion, so he continued: “You said you wanted to talk to me, so…?”

Cain stood frozen for a moment, blank, dumb look on his face, owlish eyes wide and unsettling in the cold night light. Jon was almost worried he’d fallen, hit his head on something before his face slipped back into that easy, fake smile of his. “Oh! Right! Jonathan, I could really use your help.”

Yes, he’d said as such over the phone. Help Damian couldn’t hear about. Jon gestured to the made-up tables, the fancy flowers, the lights strung up above. “It looks like you’ve got things covered, here.”

“No, silly, not to prepare for the wedding!” Cain waltzed on almost air-light feet to the closest table, motioning for him to follow, so he did. It was funny, he seemed so relaxed, not at all the way he’d sounded over the phone-- at the edge like teeth on a razor, like a heart strung up with wires that made incisions on the thinnest of skin. And now there was a lithe nature to his movements that screamed anything but, that made his own shoulders hunch with tension that couldn’t escape through his clenched hands. Cain plucked one of the centerpieces from one of the tables, and Jon watched as he took a deep whiff of one with a smile stretching across his lips. His eyes flitted upwards, and his heart skipped a beat.

Cain took slow steps toward him, uncharacteristic shyness in his movements, facing the ground with an almost bashful glare his heavy-lidded eyes. He came close, not even a foot away, and Jon took a step back almost reflexively. If Cain noticed, he said not a word, instead smiling genially with a small upturn of his lip. He held out the bouquet to him, and Jon took it without a second thought. He looked at them for a moment, twisted the bundle around with a flick of his wrist. There wasn’t anything particularly special about the bachelor’s buttons of blue, but they did smell nice. He turned them upwards and sniffed lightly at it. Cain folded his hands behind his back and smiled wider.

“You see, I need your help securing my place as Damian’s one and only.”

The flowers, they sprayed something, and it hit him right in the face _and it burned_ , and suddenly his face felt all the world like he’d set it on fire. He dropped the flowers to clutch at it, and the only thing he could think was that this was _wrong_ , that there shouldn’t have been anything on Earth that would make his skin flare up like this, that he hadn’t been in this much pain in years.

The solution that got in his nose, in his eyes, it burned holes into his skin, or it felt like it did, then sunk into his bloodstream, seeped into his veins like snake venom. The next thing he knew was his stomach churning, like a fireball lit itself in the square center of his abdomen, like its flames were flickering and melting new flesh inside of him every moment that it consumed that space, consumed him. It reached into his lungs, made it feel like he couldn’t breath. He fell to his knees and heaved.

In the midst of it all, he could feel Cain step closer, foot edging the tip of his bent knee. He raised his head, grinded his teeth against the pain and squinted one eye open.

Cain’s mischievous smile twisting into something much profoundly darker was the last thing he saw before the white-flaming pain drew his eyes to shut.

**Author's Note:**

> Reading your comments has really excited me to continue this, and I hope that the future chapters will inspire just as much of a response! ^o^
> 
> Come say hi to me on tumblr <3  
> https://detectivedamian.tumblr.com/


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